54- Mr. C. Binks on Electricity, 



an influence admit of an easy solution on the sole principle of 

 attraction. On this part of the subject there is, however, one 

 seeming difficulty, which may have suggested itself, in as much 

 as it may be thought to be an inevitable consequence of the 

 minor electrical attraction that the electrical atoms be brought 

 together by it into indissoluble union. In reply, I am pre- 

 pared to show, that neither such an effect, nor any other 

 which is inconsistent with facts, would follow, if we were en- 

 tirely to expunge repulsion, as a principle of action, from our 

 systems of physics. 



65. But what I have more particularly to state here is, that 

 it will be seen in the pages which are immediately to follow, 

 that although the law of Coulomb accurately expresses the 

 sensible effects of the action of electricity on common matter 

 in general, we have not on record a single instance of that 

 action that may not be minutely and circumstantially traced 

 to matter at insensible distances*. In the same place we shall 

 be able to explain also the particular action by which the 

 electrical state of one body may become compensated by the 

 opposite electrical state induced in some other body at a 

 sensible distance, and which was purposely passed over in an 

 early article as being premature (7.). 



London, April 17, 1838. 



X. On some of the Phaenomena and Laws of Action of Voltaic 

 Electricity, and on the Construction of Voltaic Batteries, 

 Sfc. By Christopher Binks. A second Communication, 

 addressed to J. F. Daniell, Esq. F.R.S., 8^c. Professor of 

 Chemistry in Kin^s College, London. Part the First.^ 



Section I. — Subjects of Inquiry, 

 My dear Sir, Edinburgh, April 9th, 1838. 



1. TT^HE paper which I now have the honour to submit 



to your attention is occupied with the details of an 

 experimental inquiry into subjects which have had their origin 

 as follows: 



2. You will remember that in my last paper $ I stated as 

 the results of certain experiments that any voltaic arrange- 



* Since these pages have been in the hands of the printer, I have been 

 favoured by a sight of the forthcoming [Eleventh] series of Dr. Faraday's 

 admirable " Researches ;" in which that assiduous and successful philo- 

 sopher labours to prove by experiment that electrical induction is trans- 

 mitted to distant bodies by intervening matter. How well this experience 

 accords with the new theory, will more fully appear in the ensuing part 

 of this paper. 



f Communicated by Professor Daniell. 



X Lend, and Edinb. Phil. Mag., July 1837. 



