432 Dr. Faraday's Experimental Resea?rkes in Electricity. 



the beautiful experiments of Mr. Wheatstone *, and to what 

 I have said elsewhere on the relation of common and voltaic 

 electricity (371. 375. ), it will not be too much to say, that this 

 necessary quantity of electricity is equal to a very powerful 

 flash of lightning. Yet we have it under perfect command; 

 can evolve, direct, and employ it at pleasure; and when it has 

 performed its full work of electrolyzation, it has only separated 

 the elements of a single grain of water. 



854. On the other hand, the relation between the conduc- 

 tion of the electricity and the decomposition of the water is so 

 close, that one cannot take place without the other. If the 

 water is altered only in that small degree which consists in its 

 having the solid instead of the fluid state, the conduction is 

 stopped, and the decomposition is stopped with it. Whether 

 the conduction be considered as depending upon the decom- 

 position, or not (413. 703.), still the relation of the two func- 

 tions is equally intimate and inseparable. 



855. Considering this close and twofold relation, namely, 

 that without decomposition transmission of electricity does not 

 occur; and, that for a given definite quantity of electricity 

 passed, an equally definite and constant quantity of water 

 or other matter is decomposed; considering also that the 

 agent, which is electricity, is simply employed in overcom- 

 ing electrical powers in the body subjected to its action; 

 it seems a probable, and almost a natural consequence, that 

 the quantity which passes is the equivalent of, and therefore 

 equal to, that of the particles separated ; i. e. that if the elec- 

 trical power which holds the elements of a grain of water in 

 combination, or which makes a grain of oxygen and hydro- 

 gen in the right proportions unite into water when they are 

 made to combine, could be thrown into the condition of a cur- 

 rent^ it would exactly equal the current required for the sepa- 

 ration of that grain of water into its elements again. 



856. This view of the subject gives an almost overwhelming 

 idea of the extraordinary quantity or degree of electric power 

 which naturally belongs to the particles of matter; but it is 

 not inconsistent in the slightest degree with the facts which 



or eight inches were retained at one constant temperature of dull redness, 

 equal quantities of water were decomposed in equal times in both cases. 

 When the half-inch was used, only the centre portion of wire was ignited. 

 A fine wire may even be used as a rough but ready regulator of a voltaic 

 current; for if it be made part of the circuit, and the larger wires commu- 

 nicating with it be shifted nearer to or further apart, so as to keep the 

 portion of wire in the circuit sensibly at the same temperature, the current 

 passing through it will be nearly uniform. 



* Literary Gazette, 1833, March 1 and 8. Philosophical Magazine, 1833, 

 p. 204. L*Irutitut t \&M, p. 261. 



