But with a steel horseshoe, magnetized once for all,
the magnetic lines that flow around the bend of the steel are a fixed
quantity, and, however much you diminish the reluctance of the
magnetic circuit, you do not create or evoke any more. When the
armature is away the magnetic lines arch across, not at the ends of
the horseshoe only, but from its flanks; the whole of the magnetic
lines leaking somehow across the space. Where you have put the
armature on, these lines, instead of arching out into space as freely
as they did, pass for the most part along the steel limbs and through
the iron armature. You may still have a considerable amount of
leakage, but you have not made one line more go through the bent part.
You have absolutely the same number going through the bend with the
armature off as with the armature on. You do not add to the total
number by reducing the magnetic reluctance, because you are not
working under the influence of a constantly impressed magnetizing
force. By putting the armature on to a steel horseshoe magnet you
only _collect_ the magnetic lines, you do not _multiply_ them. This is
not a matter of conjecture. A group of my students have been making
experiments in the following way: They took this large steel horseshoe
magnet (Fig.
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