336 Dr. Faraday's Experimental Reseaj-ches in Electricity. 



in the same proportion to the quantity of metal dissolved from 

 any one zinc plate, as was given in the experiment with a 

 single pair (864?. &c.). It was therefore certain, that, just as 

 much electricity and no more had passed through the series 

 of ten pair of plates as had passed through, or would have 

 been put into motion by, any single pair, notwithstanding 

 that ten times the quantity of zinc had been consumed. 



992. This truth has been proved also long ago in another 

 way, by the action of the evolved current on a magnetic 

 needle; the deflecting power of one pair of plates in a battery 

 being equal to the deflecting power of the whole, provided the 

 wires used be sufficiently large to carry the current of the 

 single pair freely; but the cause of this equality of action 

 could not be understood whilst the definite action and evolu- 

 tion of electricity (783. 869.) remained unknown. 



993. The superior decomposing power of a battery over a 

 single pair of plates is rendered evident in two ways. Elec- 

 trolytes held together by an affinity so strong as to resist the 

 action of the current from a single pair, yield up their ele- 

 ments to the current excited by many pairs ; and that body 

 which is decomposed by the action of one or of few pairs of 

 metals, &c., is resolved into its ions the more readily as it is 

 acted upon by electricity urged forward by many alterna- 

 tions. 



994. Both these effects are, I think, easily understood. 

 Whatever intensity may be, (and that must of course depend 

 upon the nature of electricity, whether it consist of a fluid or 

 fluids, or of vibrations of an s&ther, or any other kind or con- 

 dition of matter,) there seems to be no difficulty in compre- 

 hending that the degree of intensity at which a current of 

 electricity is evolved by a first voltaic element, shall be in- 

 creased when that current is subjected to the action of a se- 

 cond voltaic element, acting in conformity and possessing 

 equal powers with the first : and as the decompositions are 

 merely opposed actions, but exactly of the same kind as those 

 which generate the current (917.)j it seems to be a natural 

 consequence, that the affinity which can resist the force of a 

 single decomposing action shall be unable to oppose the ener- 

 gies of many decomposing actions, operating conjointly, as in 

 the voltaic battery. 



995. That a body which can give way to a current of feeble 

 intensity should give way more freely to one of stronger force, 

 and yet involve no contradiction to the law of definite elec- 

 trolytic action, is perfectly consistent. All the facts and also 

 the theory I have ventured to put forth, tend to show that the 

 act of decomposition opposes a certain force to the passage of 



