472 Dr, R. Hare's Objections to the Theories severaUij of 



39. A quiescent charge of frictional eleclricity only affecting 

 the superficies of any ponderable mass with which it may be 

 associated, and having no influence upon the component 

 ffithereo-ponderable atoms severally, is not to be ascribed to 

 redundancies or deficiencies of the aethereal matter, but to 

 different states of polarization produced in different sets of the 

 particles of such matter existing about the electrifiable bodies*. 

 During the action of an electrical machine, these particles 

 are polarized by the opposite polarities transiently induced in 

 the surfaces subjected to friction ; one set of particles going 

 with the electric, the other remaining with the rubber. 



40. The particles thus oppositely polarized, severally divide 

 their appropriate polarities with other aethereal matter sur- 

 rounding the conductors, and this, when insulated, is retained 

 until a further polarization results from the same process. 

 Thus are the aethereo-electric atmospheres respectively sur- 

 rounding the positive and negative conductors oppositely 

 polarized, and consequently charged to the degree which the 

 machine is competent to induce. Under these circumstances, 

 if a conducting rod be made to form between them a com- 

 munication, by touching each conductor with one of its ends, 

 the polarities of the aethereo-electric atmospheresby which they 

 are severally surrounded, propagate themselves, by a wave- 

 like process, over and more or less through the rocl, accord- 

 ing to its nature and dimensions, so as to meet intermediately, 

 and thus produce reciprocal neutralization. 



" consistently with the iindulatory theory of light, it is the .-ether of the body 

 submitted to the experiment wliich would be modified by the magnetism, 

 and that it would be veiy difficult to recognize whether it is modified 

 without any participation of the ponderabie matter vvith which it is so 

 intimately connected." Thus the existence of matter, composed of aethereal 

 as well as ponderable particles, is sustained by all the evidence which has 

 been brought to uphold the undulatory theory of light. — L. ^ E. I'kil. 

 Mag. &c. for 1846, vol. xxviii. page 335- 



* The word statical has been used to designate phaenomena which are 

 the efi'ects of electricity when at rest, as when accumulated upon conductors 

 or the surfaces of panes or jars. Phfenomena which are supposed to arise 

 from electricity in motion (forming a current), are designated as dynamic. 

 Thus when charging one side of a pane produces the opposite state in the 

 other, the effect upon the latter is ascribed to s/fl/iea/ induction ; but when 

 a discharge of electricity through one wire causes a current in another, 

 forming an adjacent circuit, the result is ascribed to di/namic induction. 

 This method of designation is employed whether the alleged current be 

 owing to electricity generated by friction, as in the case of a machine, or 

 generated by chemical reaction, as in the case of a galvanic battery. A 

 good word is wanting to distinguish electricity, when produced by friction, 

 from electricity produced by galvanocheniical reaction: for want of a 

 better, I will resort to that employed by Noad (frktionaJ), which has the 

 advantage of being self-explanatory. 



