dd4 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



peai^; that the ekctric fire, though it has not sensible heat when in ft 

 stateof rest, will, by its violent motion and the resistance it meets with, 

 produce heat in other bodies when passing through them, provided 

 they be small enough. A large quantity will pass through a large 

 wire without producing any sensible heat ; when the same quantity 

 passing through a very small one, being then confined to a narrower 

 passage, the particles crowding closer together and meeting with 

 greater resistance will make it red-hot and even melt it." The cir- 

 cumstance that Franklin regarded the experiments without the ther- 

 mometer as more demonstrative than those made with it, cannot 

 justify us in attributing to Kinnersley the object* of measuring " the 

 explosive violence of the discharge." 



Whether Sir William, when describing his thermometer, was or 

 was not acquainted with Kinnersley's thermometer is of no conse- 

 quence now, but it is otherwise when he describes his as a peculiar 

 instrument, after he has become acquainted with Kinnersley's. 

 Equally inexcusable is his claiming for himself (Phil. Mag., vol. xi. 

 p. 358) a method of measuring electricity, although he must be 

 aware that it was described by Haldane. 



Of the "perfect accuracy" of his unit- jar Sir William is so entirely 

 convinced, that he prophesies that I shall soon be compelled to 

 recognize it, and binds himself down to an offer which I will not be 

 so ungenerous as to accept. I believe that I can prove, from the 

 quotation at the close of his letter, that Sir William has no correct 

 conception of the mode of action of his unit-jar ; and X repeat, that, 

 according to the theory of the Leyden jar prevailing at the present 

 day, the measurement with the unit-jar is inexact. Experiments, 

 therefore, which are to show the accuracy of the unit-jar, must de- 

 monstrate the incorrectness of the theory of the Leyden jar, or they 

 remain valueless ; for no physicist will employ a method which is 

 theoretically inaccurate, when he has a theoretically accurate method 

 at his command. 



In conclusion. Sir William Harris gives an assurance, which I read 

 with some astonishment, that he had not the intention of personally 

 affronting me. I must confess that I have not found " a personal 

 affront " in his memoir, but a not quite proper mode of carrying on 

 a scientific discussion. 



I have the honour to be. Gentlemen, 



Your obedient Servant, 



Berlin, Atigast 22, 1856. P. Riess. 



OBSERVATIONS ON OZONE, RELATING TO A RECENT PAPER OF 

 M. CLOEZf. BY M. BINEAU. 



^ %^as long been known to every chemist, that, under very various 

 influences, iodide of potassium accompanied by starch gives rise to 

 |t blue coloration, and no one can have supposed that the so-called 

 ozonometric paper of M. Schcinbein was only impressionable by 

 ozonized oxygen. But M. Schonbein and most observers who, like 



* With his thermometer. 

 >inj>iBi^ .M Jilt See Phil. Mag. for September, p. 237. 



