242 Royal Institution. 
surface of the jar, then stopped, and appeared to return upon their 
former track, and pass successively with a deliberate motion into 
the positive electrode, They were perfectly detached from each 
other; and their successive engulfments at the positive electrode 
were so slow as to be capable of being counted aloud with the grea est 
ease. This deliberate retreat of the strata towards the positive pole 
was due, no doubt, to the gradual subsidence of the power of the 
magnet. Artificial means might probably be devised to render the 
recession of the discharge still slower. The rise of power in the 
magnet was also beautifully indicated by the deportment of the 
current. 
After the current had been once quenched, as long as the magnet 
remained excited, no discharge passed ; but on breaking the magnet 
circuit, the luminous glow reappeared. Not only, then, is there an 
action of the magnet upon the particles transported by an electric 
current, but the above experiment indicates that there is an action 
of the magnet upon the electrodes themselves, which actually prevents 
the escape of their particles. The influence of the magnet upon 
the electrode would thus appear to be prior to the passage of the 
current. 
13, The discharge of the battery was finally sent through a tube 
whose platinum wires were terminated by two small balls of carbon : 
a glow was first produced; but on heating a portion of the tube 
containing a stick of caustic potash, the positive ball sent out a 
luminous protrusion, which subsequently detached itself from the 
ball,—the tube becoming instantly afterwards filled with the most 
brilliant strata. There can be no doubt that the superior effulgence 
of the bands obtained with this tube is due to the character of its 
electrodes: the bands are the transported matter of these electrodes, 
May not this be the case with other electrodes? There appears to be 
no uniform flow in nature; we cannot get either air or water through 
an orifice in a uniform stream; the friction against the orifice is 
overcome by starts, and the jet issues in pulsations. Let a lighted 
candle be quickly passed through the air; the flame will break itself 
into a beaded line in virtue of a similar intermittent action, and it 
may be made to sing, so regular are the pulses produced by its pas- 
sage. Analogy might lead us to suppose that the electricity over- 
comes the resistance at the surface of its electrode in a similar man- 
ner, escaping from it in tremors,—the matter which it carries along 
with it being broken up into strata, as a liquid vein is broken into 
drops*. 
* Mr. Gassiot has shown that a single discharge of the Leyden jar pro- 
duces the stratification. May not every such discharge correspond to a 
single draw of a violin bow across a string ? 
