I. The Bakerian Lecture. - Experimental researches in electricity. - Twenty-second series

Abstract

§ 28. On the crystalline polarity of bismuth and other bodies, and on its relation to the magnetic form of force. ¶ i. Crystalline polarity of bismuth . ¶ ii. Crystalline polarity of antimony . ¶ iii. Crystalline polarity of arsenic . 2454. Many results obtained by subjecting bismuth to the action of the magnet have at various times embarrassed me, and I have either been contented with an im­perfect explanation, or have left them for a future examination: that examination I have now taken up, and it has led to the discovery of the following results. I cannot, however, better enter upon the subject than by a brief description of the ano­malies which occurred, and which may be obtained at pleasure. 2455. If a small open glass tube have a bulb formed in its middle part and some clean good bismuth be placed in the bulb and melted by a spirit-lamp, it is easy afterward, by turning the metal into the tubular part of the arrangement, to cast it into long cylinders: these are very clean, and when broken are seen to be crystal­lized, usually giving cleavage planes, which run across the metal. I prepare them from 0.05 to 0.1 of an inch in diameter, and, if the glass be thin, usually break both it and the bismuth together, and then keep the little cylinders in their vitreous cases.