404 OHM ON THE GALVANIC CIRCUIT. 



are however precisely the reasons why the investigation is 

 brought to a degree of simphcity which is not surpassed in any 

 branch of natural philosophy, and is altogether adapted to 

 secure incontrovertibly to mathematics the possession of a new 

 field of physics, from which it had hitherto remained almost 

 totally excluded. 



The chemical changes which so frequently occur in some, gene- 

 rally fluid, portions of a galvanic circuit, greatly deprive the re- 

 sult of its natural simplicity, and conceal, to a considerable extent, 

 by the complications they produce, the peculiar progression of 

 the phasnomenon ; they are the cause of an unexampled change 

 of the phsenomenon, which gives rise to so many apparent ex- 

 ceptions to the rule, frequently even to contradictions, in so far 

 as the sense of this word is itself not in contradiction to nature. 

 I have distinctly separated the consideration of such galvanic 

 circuits in which no portion undergoes a chemical change, 

 from those whose activity is disturbed by chemical action, and 

 have devoted a separate part to the latter in the Appendix. This 

 total separation of two parts forming a whole, and, as might 

 appear, the less dignified position of the latter, will find in the 

 following circumstance a sufficient explanation. A theory, 

 which lays claim to the name of an enduring and fruitful one, 

 must have all its consequences in accordance with observation 

 and experiment. This, it seems to me, is sufficiently established 

 with respect to the first of the parts above-mentioned, partly by 

 the pi-evious experiments of others, and partly by some performed 

 by myself, which first made me acquainted with the theory here 

 developed, and subsequently rendered me entirely devoted to it. 

 Such is not the case with regard to the second part. A more 

 accurate experimental verification is in this case almost entirely 

 wanting, to undertake which I need both the requisite time and 

 means ; and thei-efore I have merely placed it in a corner, from 

 which, if worth the trouble, it may be drawn hereafter, and may 

 then also be further matured under better nursing. 



By means of the first and third fundamental positions we 

 obtain a distinct insight into the primaiy galvanic phcenomenon 

 in the following way. Imagine, for instance, a ring every- 

 where of equal thickness and homogeneous, having, at any one^ 

 place, in its whole thickness, one and the same electrical tension, 

 i. e. inequalitA in the electrical state of two surfaces situated 

 close to each other, from which causes, when they have come 



