1855.] on Electric Conduction. 127 



function of conduction' is essential to all the results ; therefore con- 

 duction cannot be denied to the fluid water, which in all such cases 

 is acting as the only conductor. In nature, indeed, the phenomena 

 of induction, rising up to iheir most intense degree in the thunder- 

 storm, are almost, if not altogether, dependent upon the water which 

 in the earth, or the clouds, or the rain, is then acting by its conduct- 

 ing power ; and if this conducting power be of the nature of con- 

 ductio7i proper, it is probable that that function is as large and as 

 important as any exercise of the electrolytic conduction of water in 

 other natural phenomena. 



But it may be said that all these cases, when accompanied by 

 conduction, involve a corresponding and proportionate electrolytic 

 effect, and are therefore cases of electrolytic conduction ; and it is 

 the following out of such a thought that makes me think the results 

 prove a conduction proper to exist in the water. For suppose a 

 water bubble to be placed midway between a positive and a nega- 

 tive surface, as in the figure, then the parts at and about p will 



become charged positive, and those at and about n negative, solely 

 by the disturbance of the electric force originally in the bubble, 

 i. e. without any direct transmission of the electric force from 

 N or P ; the parts at c or 5' will have no electric charge, and 

 from those parts to p and n the charge will rise gradually to a 

 maximum. The electricity which appears at p, n, and elsewhere, 

 will have been conducted to these parts from other parts of the 

 bubble ; and if the bubble be replaced by two hemispheres of metal, 

 slightly separated at the equatorial parts e g, the electricity (before 

 conducted in the continuous bubble,) will then be seen to pass as a 

 bright spark. Now the particles at any part of the water bubble 

 may be considered under two points of view, either as having had 

 a current passed through them, or as having received a charge ; in 

 either view the idea of conduction proper supplies sufficient and 

 satisfactory reasons for the results ; but the idea of electrolytic con- 

 duction seems to me at present beset with difficulties. For consider 

 the particles about the equator e q, they acquire no final charge, 

 and they have conducted, as the action of the two half spheres above 

 referred to show ; and they are not in a state of mutual tension, as 

 is fully proved by very simple experiments with the half hemi- 

 spheres. Therefore oxygen must have passed from c towards n, 

 hydrogen from e towards p, i. e, towards and to the parts to which 

 the electricity has been conducted, for without such transmission of 

 Vol. II. K 



