adduced hy Prof. Faraday in siipjwrt qfDe la Rive's Theory. 537 



chimique, et que le metal surlequel raction chimiquedu liquide 

 est la plus vive est loujours positif par rapport a I'autre." 

 (From the work above cited, p. 14.) 



I should believe, moreover, that one only of the above- 

 mentioned facts would suffice to justify the proposition which 

 may be read at the end of § XXVII. of my memoir already 

 quoted, '■'■that the nexso theory is not stifficient to explain all 

 the phcenomena presented by simple electromotors, vohen the 

 two plates of vohich they are formed are immersed in the same 

 liquid" 



XIV. Then when the two elements of the voltaic pair are 

 immersed in different liquids, the cases are very many which 

 contradict the new theory, and as elsewhere I have observed, 

 they may be multiplied ahnost at the will of the experimenter. 

 These were considered by M. de la Rive as apparent anoma- 

 lies, and to explain them, I supposed that the two electric 

 principles tend to reunite themselves immediately in both 

 liquids, that such reunion is more easy in the liquid which 

 gives a positive action, and therefore the metal there immersed 

 is negative. 



Concerning this hypothetical explanation, after having 

 pointed out in § XXX. of my memoir three things to me 

 incomprehensible in it, I demonstrated, with the assistance of 

 expei'iment, that admitting those immediate reunions of the 

 electric principles, very many facts are found in contradiction 

 to the theory. And I concluded it "a thing not easy to be ad- 

 mitted that nature availed herself of those immediate recompo- 

 sitions of the two electric priricijiles, excejJt in those experiments 

 which do not in any manner square with the new theory." And 

 I terminated that section with some experiments derived from 

 two then recent observations of Signor Becquerel, from which 

 was inferred clearly " that in the voltaic pair is a cause which 

 gives origin to electricity which cannot be confounded xvith the 

 chemical action, and which is more powerful than it." 



Now I would ask of Dr. Fusinieri what reply can be found 

 in the work of M. de la Rive to these objections? Docs he 

 think it may suffice to find the same things (confuted by me) 

 repeated in it, and without any notice wiiatever of the confu- 

 tation ? The silence of M. de la Rive would suffice certainly 

 to reply where objections evidently erroneous were treated of ; 

 but where I bring forward experiments easy to be repeated, 

 why had not Dr. Fusinieri, acute observer as he is, the curi- 

 osity to see them before pronouncing a judgment so disad- 

 vantageous with respect to them? 



XV. Let us see, finally, what may be replied to the argu- 

 ments with which I proved that the Delarivian theory was 



