184 Imperial Academy of Sciences jit St. Peterslmrgh. 



continual movement of the waters. This is the principal 

 source of the muriate of soda, with which ihe water of the 

 sea is cliargecl. When the sea is very rough, the friction 

 of the two electrical fluids against each other liberates a 

 part of their light : this is therefore what makes the sea lu- 

 minous. 



** Such are the essential and general facts which seemed 

 to me to result from the examination of the particular facts, 

 of which the History of Electricity, Galvanism, and Mag- 

 netism is composed. They are immediately connected with 

 the universal system, the principle of which I have presented 

 to the public *. They are demonstrated by this principle, 

 and, in their turn, they serve to elucidate ihis principle itself. 



" The universe is an assemblage of lacts, directed and tied 

 together bv one sole cause. 



" I shall soon explain what I have been able to discover 

 of this maQ-nificfcut assemblage." 



XXVI. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT 

 ST. PETERSBURGII. 



X HE above Academy had, in their last public notice, pro- 

 posed the prize of live hundred roubles to be given to 

 any professor of phvsic, v\ho would establish, and commu- 

 nicate to the academy, " a scries of new and instructive 

 experiments on light, considered as matter, also on the 

 properties which may in part be attributed 1o it; on the affi- 

 nities which it may appear to have, either to organized or 

 inorganized bodies, and upon the modifications and phaeno- 

 iTiena of these substances, by their combinations with the 

 matter of liglit." The academy had declared at the same 

 time, in order not to confine the learned, who might 

 have similar pursuits, that they contented themselves with 

 stating the subject generally, leaving them at liberty to con- 



• The author here alludes to a work he has just published under the title 

 of Essai suy Ic Monde. — Edit. 



sider 



