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The Royal Society: Science in the Making

Unpublished paper, 'Further enquiries concerning, the laws, and the operation of electrical force' by William Snow Harris

Reference number: AP/45/6

Date: 1864

Description

Harris endeavours to definitely express what is meant by quantity of electricity, electrical charge, and intensity. By quantity of electricity he understands the actual amount of the unknown agency constituting electrical force, as represented by some arbitrary quantitative ‘electrical’ measure. By electrical charge he under stands the quantity which can be sustained upon a given surface under given electrometer indication. Electrical intensity, on the contrary, is ‘the electrometer indication’ answering to a given quantity upon a give surface.

Includes three pages of figures of experimental apparatus.

Subject: Physics / Electricity

Received 8 June 1864. Read 16 June 1864.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 13 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'Further inquiries concerning the laws and operation of electrical force'.

Reference number
AP/45/6
Earliest possible date
1864
Physical description
Ink on paper
Page extent
84 pages
Format
Drawing
Manuscript

Creator name

William Snow Harris

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Citation

William Snow Harris, Unpublished paper, 'Further enquiries concerning, the laws, and the operation of electrical force' by William Snow Harris, 1864, AP/45/6, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/ap_45_6/unpublished-paper-further-enquiries-concerning-the-laws-and-the-operation-of-electrical-force-by-william-snow-harris, accessed on 16 July 2025

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https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/ap_45_6/unpublished-paper-further-enquiries-concerning-the-laws-and-the-operation-of-electrical-force-by-william-snow-harris

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    The 'Archived Papers' collection is comprised of original manuscript scientific papers and letters submitted to the Royal Society which remained unpublished or were abstracted in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society' published from 1830 onwards.

    Dates: 1768 - 1989

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