If this view is correct, it may also be possible to prepare magnetic alloys of chromium, the only other paramagnetic metals of the iron group.
Du Bois believes this to be an important general law, applicable to the case of every paramagnetic substance, and suggests that the product KB should be known as " Curie's constant " for the substance.
Ordinarily a substance composed of asymmetrical molecules is paramagnetic, but if the elementary magnets are so conditioned by their strength and concentration that mutual action between them is possible, then the substance is ferromagnetic. In all cases however it is the diamagnetic condition that is initially set up - even iron is diamagnetic - though the diamagnetism may be completely masked by the superposed paramagnetic or ferromagnetic condition.
The fact being established that magnetism is essentially a molecular phenomenon, the next step is to inquire what is the constitution of a magnetic molecule, and why it is that some molecules are ferromagnetic, others paramagnetic, and others again diamagnetic. The best known of the explanations that have been proposed depend upon the magnetic action of an electric current.
This was followed at the close of the same year by the discovery of the magnetic condition of all matter, a discovery which initiated a prolonged and fruitful study of paramagnetic and diamagnetic phenomena, including magnecrystallic action and " magnetic conducting power," now known as permeability.