ALL MATTER, TOXDERABLE AND IMPONDERABLE. 28& 



this thread remain covored with trohl after the passa£!;eof the electric! tji These 

 parts are at equal distances, or distances which are multiples of one another, 

 and these distances vary with the intensity of the discharii-e. The a'ohl which 

 is seen still adhering to the silk thread must have been less ai^'itated than that 

 which has undergone vohitilization ; here, therefore, were the points of miiiimiiui 

 agitation. 



By substituting for the threads of gilt silk strips of tin, maintained in ])lace 

 between two glasses, analogous eflects are obtained. Under the inlluence of the 

 discharge the particles undergo fusion, impressing their traces on the glasses. 

 We then discover an innumerable quantity of small and very fine filaments, which 

 group themselves around the strip like the filings of iron around the poles of a 

 magnet. 



Sometimes, from the point of the explosion shoot in all directions rectilinear 

 trails of a copper color and semi-transpai'ent, forming a sort of divergent rays 

 constituted by metallic particles reduced to a state of extreme teninty by the 

 discharge. Exaunned with the microscope these trails are of a structure truly 

 exquisite, and are disposed with admirable symmetry on each side of the central 

 band, along the length of which are to be ol)served points of maximum and of 

 mininmm intensity. A series of figures thus obtained are annexed : diilerent 

 systems of linear filaments, of circular figures, of elliptical figures, continuous and 

 discontinuous, affording a beautiful exen)plification of the coexist(^nco in the same 

 IxkIv of several kinds of movement, preserving their individual character in all 

 its integrity. 



It is quite surprising to see that certain of the electric rays arriving on the 

 edge of the glasses, between which the s^trips of tin are confined, rel»ound on the 

 surface of separation of the two mediums, and are reflected in making an angle of 

 refiecticm equal to the angle of incidence. 



Is it possible, at sight of these figures, not to admit that the metallic vapor thus 

 distributed has V)een subjected to a vibratory agitation, to a species of undulatory 

 movement ? Nothing can be more beatitiful than these fine and granulated 

 curves which cross each other in a thousand ways on the interior faces of the 

 glass, and along which are disposed very minute metallic particles, visible, how- 

 ever, to the naked eye when looked at on being transferred to the difi'used light 

 of heaven. We are forced by this to conclude that the vibratory movement is 

 transnutted by waves which increase as they are propagated, which arc* refiected 

 to the surface of separation of the two mediums, and which reveal to the eye iho 

 route traversed by the reflected wave. 



The discoveries of Faraday on the relation of magnetism to Ji(jhf,on the iU/twiii/c- 

 tion of mnfjnrtic lines, antl on (li((i)uif/ii(:tism, the sounds which, according to the 

 obscnations of Wertheim, of l^e la Rive, as well as my own, acccunpauy tenq)orary 

 magnetism and interrupted currents, are phenomena of the same order, tending to 

 prove that the forces of matter are in a reciprocal dependence so intimate that 

 they are capable of producing one another by equivalent quantities. 



But the intervention of determinate conditicms for the ])roduction of such or 

 Buch a kind of movement is necessarily sultordinate to the pre-existence, in every 

 species of matter, of a molecular agitation which, under the influence of the 

 difl'erent circumstances we havi* passed in review, may take any character what- 

 ever, pass from one species of movement to another, or ])e added to other move- 

 ments which may exist at the same time in the same body, and thus give vise to 

 luminous, calorific, electro-magnetic or chemical phenomena, or to all tiiese move- 

 mcjits at once. 



Thus we are led to admit, in the atoms of ponderable bodies, and with still 

 stronger reason in the jnirticles of imponderable matter, an interior movement, a 

 primordial property — that is to say, a general property which has always existed. 



The intensity of this interior agitation varies with the nature and dimensioiis 

 of the body, with the volume and density of the atoms, with their in<livid;:a] 

 19 s 



