A Powerful Magnet.

Manawatu Herald, 27 October 1892, Page 3

A Powerful Magnet.

Probably the largest and strongest mogtiet in the world is that at Willet's Point, New York. It came to be irade hy accident. Major King happened to see two large 15 inch Dahlgrea guns lying unused side by side on the rock, a-ad immediate'y conceived the idea that a maguet of enormus power could be constructed by means of these cannon with a submarine cable wound aronn 1 them. The magnet which stands about ten i'eefc from the gro nd, is 28 feet long, and' has 8 miles of cible wound about the upper part cf the gun. It takes a force of 25,00011)3 to pnll off the armature. A seemingly impos.-ible experiment was performed with some 15 inch solid cannou balls, the magnet holding several of them suspended in the air, one under ihe other. The most interesting experi ment was the test made of a nonmaguetic watch. The test was highly satisfactory. The magnet was so powerful that an ordinary watch was stop >ed stock still as soon as it cune within three feet of it, while an American non. magnetic watch was f.u- ten minutes held in front of the maguet, and it did not vary the hundreth part of a second. A sledge hammer wielded in the opposite directiou to the magnet, feels as though one was trying to hit a blow with a fea her in a gale of wind.