honored amongst men. I will try to give a clear and exact idea of this most important discovery.
The voltaic pile is terminated at its extremities, or, if you prefer as an expression more 
suitable, at its two poles by two dissimilar metals. Let us suppose, for example, the elements of 
this wonderful apparatus to be copper and zinc; if the copper is at one of the poles the zinc will 
inevitably be at the other. The battery, with the exception of some slight traces of tension, is, or 
at least seems to be, completely inert as long as the extreme poles are not put into communication 
by means of a substance conductive of electricity. A metallic wire is generally used to connect the 
two poles of the battery, or, which amounts to the same thing, to put the apparatus in action. This 
wire is then called the conjunctive wire. 
A current of electricity passes along the whole length of the conductor, and circulates 
uninterruptedly through the closed circuit, resulting from the union of the wire and the 
battery. If the battery is very powerful, the current will be equally so. 
Physicists had for a long time known how to impart to an insulated metallic wire a large quantity 
of electricity in repose, or electricity of tension, as it is called in treatises on physics; they 
also know how to transmit electricity along wires not insulated in very large quantities, 
but in this case the passage was sudden and instantaneous. The first means of combining intensity 
with duration in currents of electricity is furnished by the galvanic battery, with which a 
discharge, more powerful than could be produced by the largest ancient machines for the millionth 
part of a second, is here given for hours together. Does the conjunctive wire, the wire along which 
a quantity of electricity passes uninterruptedly, acquire, in consequence of this movement, 
any new properties? To this question the experiment of Oersted replies affirmatively in the most 
striking manner. 
Let us place a wire of a certain length, of copper, silver, platinum, or any other metal without 
appreciable magnetic action, above a horizontal compass, and parallel to its needle. The 
presence of the wire will have no effect. Make no change in the first arrangement, but join, either 
directly or by intermediary long or short wires, the two extremities of the parallel wire to the two 
poles of a voltaic pile; or in this way let us transform the insulated wire into a conjunctive wire, 
along which a permanent current of electricity  passes, and at that very instant the needle of the 
compass will change its direction; if the battery be feeble the deviation will be inconsiderable; 
but if the battery be very strong, notwithstanding the action of the earth, the magnetic needle will 
form a angle of nearly 90° with its natural position. 
I have supposed the conducting wire above the magnetic needle, placed below the phenomenon 
would be the same with regard to quantity, and exactly opposite as to the direction of the 
deviation. The conjunctive wire above would impel the north pole of the needle toward the