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V. — Researches into the Identity of the Existences or Forces 

 of Light, Heati Electricity, Magnetism, arid Gravitation. 

 By John Goodman, M.D. 



Kead April 4, 1848. 



In a former paper read before this Society, I introduced 

 an arrangement (described in the Report of the British 

 Association for 1847) by which the powerful substance 

 potassium, assists in forming a very quiet and practical 

 voltaic battery. Being a substance possessing the highest 

 chemical affinities, it was also shown to manifest the most 

 exalted electrical energy, and to be capable of decomposing 

 water, and deflecting gold-leaf, by a single pair. 



An unanswerable argument was thereby adduced, and a 

 still further corroboration of the analogy of all chemical and 

 electrical phenomena, at first indicated by Sir H. Davy. 



It becomes now a matter of enquiry, if chemical affinity 

 and electricity are analogical — bow far the calorific pro- 

 perties of potassium are in harmony with its other powers ? 



Whether, if chemical affinity is electrical force—and 

 electricity is only a modified form of caloric (as several 

 experiments have led me to suspect) — the quantity of calo- 

 ric existing at all times in this extraordinary metal, and 

 the calorific phenomena displayed in its combustion, and 

 in other test experiments, are in any manner proportional 

 to its intense electro-chemical powers. 



The first method of procedure which I adopted was, to 

 ascertain the known properties of potassium. This sub- 



