1826.] Mr. Faraday on Sulpho-naphthalic Acid, 201 



in the solution, an indefinite number of particles of metallic 

 copper are produced in the fluid, at insensible distances from 

 each other, and there is nothing that can interfere with the 

 powerful cohesive attraction they must have for each other, 

 especially in this nascent state : they are under the most favour- 

 able circumstances for aggregating into a mass of metal, and 

 such a mass they accordingly form. It seems, indeed, difficult 

 to conceive, that any other should be the result. 



The consideration of these subjects has led me, perhaps, 

 into details somewhat irrelevant ; and it may be thought that 

 there are too many postulata to be granted, before what I 

 have advanced on the origin of the new varieties of carbon can 

 be received : this may probably be the case ; but I deemed it 

 most ingenuous to state my views on the subject, in the order in 

 which they were presented to my own thoughts ; and I may be 

 permitted to hope, that the simplicity of the explanation that 

 has occurred to me, and the facts I have adduced in support of 

 it, and of the inductions on which it is founded, will meet witli 

 some attention. It may also be observed, that the essential 

 identity of the liquid and aeriform states, is not a necessary part 

 of the explanation I have given of the manner in which the 

 filamentous carbon is produced ; nor of the grounds for believing, 

 that the liquid always intervenes between the gaseous and the 

 solid states. 



Should what I have offered prove in any degree useful to the 

 chemist to whom we are indebted for the discovery and 

 account of the substances in question, in any further researches 

 on them he may be disposed to undertake, I shall consider that 

 I have not made these observations in vain. And as they have 

 insensibly assumed a somewhat critical tone, I beg to dis- 

 avow any intention of animadverting on Dr. Colquhoun's 

 useful paper with that view ; my aim having been, solely, to 

 endeavour to develope the causes of the phaenomena he 

 describes. I am. Dear Sir, yours very truly, 



E. W. Brayley, Jun. 



Article IV. 



On the Mutual Action of Sulphuric Acid a fid Na/jlithaline, 

 and on a new Acid produced. By M. Faraday, FRS. Cor- 

 responding Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, ^c.^ 



In a paper on New Compounds of Carbon and Hydrogen, 

 lately honoured by the Royal Society with a place in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions, I had occasion briefly to notice the pecu- 



■ From the Philosoplucal Transactions for 1826, Pan JI, 



