62 Mr. C. Binks on Electricity, 



or effects of electricity abstractedly, but relate chiefly to some 

 of the physical conditions under which its operations take 

 place, and more particularly to the relative spaces occupied 

 by the agents engaged in its operations. The law deduced 

 by Faraday was, that the influence of electricity over bodies 

 subjected to its action was directly as its quantity, and as the 

 equivalent numbers of the bodies themselves. The results 

 which will be attempted here to be established (but of which 

 one instance only has as yet been adduced, in paragraph 16) 

 are, first, that the superficial areas of the spaces within which 

 this electrical action takes place, have a definite relation to 

 the kind of bodies occupied with that action ; or, more speci- 

 fically, that the superficial areas of the electrodes have a de- 

 finite relation to the kinds of bodies which, by the force of 

 voltaic action, are determined to those electrodes ; and second, 

 that the law which expresses these relations is, that the rela- 

 tion between the areas of the two electrodes is inversely as the 

 relation between the specific gravities of the bodies respectively 

 determined to those electrodes, each area being multiplied by 

 the comparative number of volumes of the body determined 

 to it. 



30. So that in the instance already referred to (16), where- 

 in the bodies so determined are hydrogen and oxygen gases, 

 we have their relative specific gravities as 1 and 1 6 ; but these 

 bodies have resulted from the binary compound water, in 

 which their volumes are not equal, but as two to one. So 

 that when the numbers expressing the specific gravities are 

 used inversely to represent the areas of the two electrodes, we 

 have those areas as 1 6 and 1 ; that is, the area of that electrode 

 at which the hydrogen appears being inversely as the sp. gr. 

 of the hydrogen, is equal to 1 6, and that of the oxygen equal 

 to 1 ; which numbers, being multiplied respectively by the 

 number of volumes in which these two bodies occur in this 

 case, give 16 (area) x 2 (vol.) = 32 for the area of the hydro- 

 gen electrode; and 1 (area) x 1 (vol.) = 1 for that of the 

 oxygen ; which proportions are exactly those of the copper 

 and zinc plates as found by actual experiment, the surface of the 

 copper plates yielding the maximum effect in any such arrange- 

 ment requiring to be 32 times greater than that of the zinc. 



31. Or, in another view, the expression of the same law 

 may be, that the relative areas of the two electrodes are di- 

 rectly as the relative bulks of equal weights, multiplied by the 

 number of volumes of the two bodies respectively determined 

 to those electrodes : so that in the same instance as above, in 

 which the elements determined to each electrode are hydrogen 

 and oxygen gases, we have the comparative bulks of equal 



