It was in the year 1819 that Hans Oersted, now settled as a lecturer at Copenhagen, announced the result of a series of investigations which laid the foundation for the new science of electro-magnetism. He stated that he had found that if a magnetic needle, free to move like that of a compass, was brought parallel to a wire charged with electricity, it would leave its natural place and take up a new one, dependent on the position of the wire and the needle relative to each other. If the needle, he said, was placed horizontally under the wire, the pole of the needle nearest the negative end of the electric battery would move westward, but, on the other hand, if the needle was placed above the wire, the same pole would move eastward. Again, if the needle was placed on the same horizontal plane as the wire, no motion would be on that plane, but the inclination would be to a vertical movement. Finally, if the wire was laid to the west of the needle, the pole nearest the negative side of the battery would be depressed, but it would be raised if the wire was placed to the east of the needle. From these observations, verified in numerous experiments, Oersted concluded that the magnetic action of the electric force moved in a circular manner around the conducting object, which he expressed in the formula that ‘the pole _above_ which the negative enters is turned to the west,’ and that ‘the pole _under_ which it enters is turned to the east.’ The discoveries of Oersted resulted in the creation of that wonderful production of modern science--the electric telegraph. A minor result, highly important as regards the erection, and still more the maintenance, of lightning conductors, was the construction of galvanometers.
What the microscope is to the student of the inner secrets of animal and vegetable life, the galvanometer is to the investigator of the phenomena of electricity, in their practical applications. Until its invention, there existed no means of practically testing the strength of the electric force, or the ‘current,’ as it is usually called, and it was not possible, therefore, to ascertain, in any given case, whether lightning conductors, among others, were really efficient or not. Perhaps, had it been only for this purpose, the galvanometer would have waited long in being constructed, but what brought it into existence, and led it to its present perfection, was that greatest of practical uses of electricity, the telegraph. As it arose from small beginnings to gradually more extended employment, embracing ultimately some of the highest interests of civilised mankind, there came the necessity of having instruments for gauging accurately the effects of the mysterious force thus put in harness at the bidding of science. The galvanometer having been devised, the next step, indispensable for its use, was to frame a standard by which electrical energy might be measured, and to invent terms by which the amount of such energy could be expressed. It is well known that in order to be able to measure the dimensions of any material object, standard units are required. In this country the units adopted are: for length, the foot; for weight, the pound; for time, the second; and so on. To express mechanical force or power, the foot pound is the unit employed--that is, the mechanical energy necessary to raise a weight of one pound to a height of one foot. On the Continent, where the units of length and weight are the metre and the gramme, the unit of mechanical energy is the metre gramme. Apart from the fact that the latter units are very generally adopted by all the Continental States, the simplicity of the decimal method of multiplying and sub-multiplying them renders the system of particular usefulness for scientific purposes; and they are therefore very extensively employed even in England in scientific research. Thus experimental results obtained in one country are at once understood, and are directly comparable with results obtained in any other country, without the necessity of reducing the figures to terms of units of other kinds than those in which they are expressed.