One of these wires he connected with a voltaic battery of ten cells, and the other with a sensitive galvanometer.

When connection with the battery was made, and while the current flowed, no effect whatever was observed at the galvanometer.

But he never accepted an experimental result, until he had applied to it the utmost power at his command.

He raised his battery from 10 cells to 120 cells, but without avail.

The current flowed calmly through the battery wire without producing, during its flow, any sensible result upon the galvanometer.
'During its flow,' and this was the time when an effect was expected--but here Faraday's power of lateral vision, separating, as it were, from the line of expectation, came into play--he noticed that a feeble movement of the needle always occurred at the moment when he made contact with the battery; that the needle would afterwards return to its former position and remain quietly there unaffected by the flowing current.