Prof. Faraday on Electric Conduction. 103 



and about p will become charged positive, and those at and about 

 n negative, solely by the disturbance of the electric force origin- 

 ally in the bubble, i. e. without any direct transmission of the 

 electric force from N or P ; the parts at e ov q will have no elec- 

 tric charge, and from those parts to p and n the charge will rise 

 gradually to a maximum. The electricity which appears at^j/, ti, 

 and elsewhere, will have been conducted to these parts from other 

 parts of the bubble ; and if the bubble be replaced by two hemi- 

 spheres of metal, slightly separated at the equatorial parts eq, 

 the electricity (before conducted in the continuous bubble) will 

 then be seen to pass as a bright spark. Now the particles at 

 any part of the water bubble may be considered under two points 

 of view, either as having had a current passed through them, or 

 as having received a charge ; in either view the idea of conduc- 

 tion proper supplies sufficient and satisfactory reasons for the 

 results ; but the idea of electrolytic conduction seems to me at 

 present beset with difficulties. For consider the particles about 

 the equator eq, — they acquire no final charge, and they have con- 

 ducted, as the action of the two half spheres above referred to 

 show ; and they are not in a state of mutual tension, as is fully 

 proved by very simple experiments with the half hemispheres. 

 Therefore oxygen must have passed from e towards n, hydrogen 

 from e towards ^j, i. e. towards and to the parts to which the 

 electricity has been conducted, for without such transmission of 

 the anions and cations there would be no transmission of the 

 electricity, and so no electrolytic conduction. But then the 

 questions arise, — Where do these elements appear ? is the water 

 at n oxygenated, and that about p hydrogenated ? and may the 

 elements be at last dispersed into tlie air at these two points, as 

 in the case of decompositions against air poles ? (Exp. Res. 455, 

 461, &c.) In regard to such questions other considerations 

 occur respecting the particles about jj and n, and the condition 

 of charge they have acquired. These have received the elec- 

 tricity which has passed as a current through the equatorial 

 parts, but they have had no current or no proportional current 

 through themselves — the conduction has extended to them but 

 not through them ; no electricity has passed for instance through 

 the particle at n or aip, yet more electricity has gone by some 

 kind of conduction to them than to any other of the particles in 

 the sphere. It is not consistent with our understanding of elec- 

 trolytic conduction to suppose that these particles have been 

 charged by such conduction ; for in the exercise of that function 

 it is just as essential that the electricity should leave the decom- 

 posing particle on the one side, as that it should yo to it on the 

 other : the mere escape of oxygen and hydrogen into the air is 

 not enough to account for the result, for such escape may be 



