152 Mr. Knox on the Direction and Mode of 



To return to the source of the voltaic force in the battery. Zinc, when 

 placed in contact with a dry acid, has been found to become positively electrified. 

 When the zinc plate h>!as been immersed in the acid solution, being positive, it 

 attracts oxygen, by union with which its electrical state is disguised, while the 

 hydrogen, set free in a highly positive electrical state, reacts upon the oxide of 

 zinc, rendering it negative by induction. The platinum wire connecting the posi- 

 tive solution with the negative zinc plate, reduces all for the moment to a state 

 of equilibrium, so that the electricity becomes disguised, not transfen-ed bodily 

 from the platinum to the zinc ; which state of equilibrium is no sooner restored 

 than it is destroyed, the zinc regaining its positive state, and the oxide being 

 removed by the acid. 



If we consider then what takes place, we shall perceive that the zinc plate un- 

 dergoes alternate states of induction and equilibrium, as do likewise the particles 

 of the solution between the zinc and platinum plates, and, in fine, the platinum 

 plate itself, and that as the number of alternations of zinc and platinum increases, 

 the electrical energy of the zinc plate increases, as does also the rapidity of its 

 oxidation and deoxidation, and as a consequence the rapidity of change of 

 induction and equilibrium upon which the intensity of the current depends. 



The decomposition of the electrolyte may be considered to be the effect 

 produced by two forces acting upon its particles ; the attraction of the poles* 

 of the battery (whether they be metal, water, or air) originating, while the 

 electrical states induced upon the particles give the direction to the electrolytic 

 action. 



From what has been said above, we may, I think, presume that an electric 

 current originates in a natural electro-inductive power of bodies when brought 

 into contact, and is continued by alternate states of induction and equilibrium, 

 the rapidity of change of state constituting its intensity. And inasmuch as the 

 accumulation of the electric ether on the surface of the particles by the inductive 



* In place of poles, I should more properly have said electrodes, their bounding surfaces. It 

 follows, as a consequence of the theory, that the particles of oxygen in contact with the electrodes 

 should be attracted by, and set free from, those electrodes upon each alteniation of the states of 

 induction and equilibrium ; and that, when the induced state has not sufficient energy to overcome 

 the affinities already engaged, the current of electricity passes without producing electrolyzation. 

 For a different explanation, vid. Dr. Faraday's Series of Researches, 493, 494, 495, 534, 535, 536, 

 337, 807. 



