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to the invention, since the article, in its present state, can only be considered a philosophical toy, although in the discovery and invention it is not impossible that the same principle, or some modification of it on a more extended scale, my hereafter be applied to some useful purpose. But without reference to its practical utility, and only viewed as a new effect produced by one of the most mysterious agents of nature, you will not, perhaps, think the following account of it unworthy of a place in the Journal of Science.

"It is well known that an attractive or repulsive force is exerted between two magnets, according as poles of different names, or poles of the same name, are presented to each other.

"In order to understand ^[[how]] this principle can be applied to produce a reciprocating motion, let us suppose a bar magnet to be supported horizontally on an axis passing through the centre of gravity, in precisely the same