TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. SSk 



call electrogen ; the proof will be given in a work which I hope speedily to publish, 

 in which 1 have clearly proved that each tenacious atom attaches to its sphere of 

 repulsion a number of aetherial atoms, such that the sum of their forces is exactly equal 

 to that of the atom to which they are attached. These are luiiformly disposed, and 

 therefore, as Newton has shown, have the same effect as if placed in its centre : this 

 may be called the attached atmosphere. 



Circles being described on each of these as centres, with the radius of an aetherial 

 atom, and a sphere concentric to the tenacious atom, touch them internally, and an- 

 other externally ; then between the attached atmosphere and the inner sphere will be 

 a spherical shell equal in thickness to the radius of the aetherial atom, less the diameter 

 of the tenacious atom ; the aetherial atoms in this shell are all repulsive and equal 

 together to the attraction of the tenacious atom, and hence it may be called the neutral 

 shell. After this succeeds another shell, whose thickness is equal to the diameter of 

 the central atom ; in this the setherial atoms begin to attract more and more from the 

 concave to the convex side, to the surface of which the united actions bring an atmo- 

 sphere of electrogen ; the electrogen is abundant, so that by the pressure of the atmo- 

 sphere the centres are within the spheres of each other's repulsion. The difference 

 of conducting power will be found in the difference of these shells. 



Suppose two tenacious atoms the force of one ten times greater than the force of 

 the other, but its sphere of repulsion ten times less ; calculation gives the repulsive 

 force between the centres of its attached atmosphere, which force in one million 

 times greater, and shows its diametrical shell contains ten times more atoms crowded 

 in a space many times less, the difference being chiefly on the convex side. Hence 

 electrogen cannot by any moderate force enter its diametrical shell ; it will be a con- 

 ductor, because the electrogen easily floats on its surface. A moderate force will 

 bring electrogen into the shell of the other, which will prove more or less an obstruc- 

 tion to the passage of electrogen ; it will therefore be a non-conductor and an electric. 



Suppose, now, the balls of a long conductor brought near the sides of a charged 

 electric. Tiie electrogen, tending outward from the positive side of the electric, affects 

 the contiguous air to the conductor, and along it to the negative side, where the 

 effect is increased by the tendency of electrogen to supply the defect on that side ; when 

 brought to the striking distance, a spark passes from the positive side and another 

 to the negative side, and the equilibrium is quickly restored from both sides towards 

 the middle of the conductor, although it pass but to a short distance. The passage of 

 the spark is quite different from the conducting of the fluid; in the spark a body of 

 electrogen forces its passage in a prepared direction, but a current is propagated along 

 a conductor from atom to atom. Thus, in the wire of the electric telegraph, by the 

 action of the galvanic apparatus, the lines of electrogen along the sides of the wire are 

 affected through the whole length, and as there is a continual supply from the appa- 

 ratus, the whole line is at once and continually put in motion, each atom of electrogen 

 taking place of the next through the whole line, so that the apparatus causes the 

 passage of the atoms nearly at the same time to proceed at the other end, distant 30, 

 50, 100, or 1000 miles; a greater distance requiring of course a greater intensity 

 of galvanic action. It ought not to excite surprise that these effects are so readily 

 produced, when we consider that the wire of itself, in certain positions, without any 

 galvanic apparatus, would convey electricity to the earth, to which in high latitudes 

 it always has a tendency to move along any conductors in the air ; hence the air itself 

 assists the transmission, which would be instantaneous, and of equal amount in every 

 part of the wire, were it not for want of perfect conductibility ; as soon as electrogen 

 begins to enter at one end, an equal portion tends to go off at the other end, the cur- 

 rent being at once produced in the atoms which occupy its whole length. 



On the Decomposition of Water under Pressure, hy the Galvanic Battery. 

 By John P. Gassiot, V.P.R.S. 



It is a well-known law, long since discovered by Dr. Faraday, that whatever may 

 be the liquid electrolysed by the galvanic battery, and whatever may be the size of the 

 electrodes used, the same amount of chemical decomposition takes place in each cell 

 of the battery ; if water is placed in any number of separate vessels, connected by 

 platinum electrodes with each other, and thus introduced within the circuit of a gal- 

 vanic battery, the same amount of the mixed gases will be evolved from each vessel. 



