Franklin, Dufay and Ampere. 471 



are clue to a progressive affection of the conducting medium, 

 analogous in its mode of propagation to waves, as in the case 

 of liquids, or the aerial or eethereal undulations to which sound 

 and light are ascribed (I, 2, 3, &c. &c.). 



35. The idea intended to be conveyed by the word wave, 

 as applied in common to the undulatory affections above- 

 mentioned, and that which is conceived to be the cause of the 

 pheenotnena usually ascribed to one or more electrical currents, 

 requires only that there should be a state of matter, which, 

 while it may be utterly different from either of those which 

 constitute the waves of water, light or sound, may, neverthe- 

 less, like either, pass successively from one portion of a mass 

 to another. 



36. The affection thus designated may be reasonably di- 

 stinguished from other waves as a wave of polarization, since 

 the wire acts, so long as subjected to the reiterated dischai'ges 

 of a voltaic series, as if it wei'e converted into innumerable 

 small magnets, situated like tangents to radii proceeding from 

 its axis, 



37. But if a polarizable medium be requisite to electrical 

 discharges, since they pass through a space when devoid of 

 ponderable matter, there must be some imponderable medium 

 through which they can be effected. Hence we have I'eason 

 to infer that there is an imponderable matter existing through- 

 out all space, as well as within conductors, which is more or 

 less the medium of the opposite waves essential to electric 

 discharges. Quoting his own language, Davy's experiments 

 led him to consider "that space (meaning void space), where 

 there is not an appreciable quantity of this matter (meaning 

 ponderable matter), is capable of exhibiting electrical phae- 

 nomena:" also that such phaenomena ''are produced by a 

 highly subtile fluid or fluids." Moreover, that "it may be 

 assumed, as in the hypothesis of Hooke, Euler, and Huygens, 

 that an eethereal matter susceptible of electrical affections fills 

 all space." 



38. Agreeably to the suggestions above made, all ponde- 

 rable matter which is liable to be electrified internally by 

 electrical discharges, may be considered as consisting of atoms 

 composed of imponderable a;thereo-electric particles in a state 

 of combination with ponderable particles, analogous to that 

 which has been supposed to e^ist between such particles and 

 caloric when causing expansion, liquidity or the aeriform 

 state. Atoms so constituted of ycthereal and ponderable par- 

 ticles, may be designated as ajthereo-ponderabie atoms*. 



• Pouillet suggests that when tlie |)assiif;e of a ray of liglu through ghiss 

 is influenced hy a powerful magnet, agreeably to the experiments of Karaday, 



