36 ELECTRICAL STRUCTURE AND 



needles to electrolytic action possibly set up when they are 

 left in such cells for several days at a time. Another thing 

 of which sight should not be lost is the initial test of 

 Turnip No. 2. The first charge of ten minutes with 1-5 

 volts was dissipated in less than ten minutes, but when the 

 absolute insulation of the vegetable was improved in the 

 manner described in the second and third tests it did not 

 recover until thirty-four minutes had elapsed. The 

 electrolytic action and consequent polarisation should have 

 been the same in both tests, and altogether I think it must 

 be agreed that the weight of evidence is in favour of 

 capacity, and not polarisation of electrodes, as explaining 

 the phenomena, although there can be no doubt that the 

 electrodes were affected to some extent by electrolysis. 



PRIMARY OR SECONDARY CELLS ? 



The problem is, no doubt, possible of solution, but in so 

 far as 1 am acquainted with the chemistry of the subject, 

 I have yet to hear of a cell made by man in which there 

 occurs no disintegration or no change, and which cannot 

 be either polarised or discharged by continued short- 

 circuiting. 



Some vegetables and fruits, it is true, are more liable 

 to decay than others, but decay interferes with their 

 electrical activity only by diffusion, by breaking down the 

 protection between the negative and positive elements, 

 and, possibly, by setting up local action. Once that 

 happens the process of decay is very rapid. 



Their life that is to say, their edibility as well as 

 electrical activity appears to depend largely if not to be 

 in direct ratio to their absolute insulation resistance. Of 

 all vegetables the onion has the highest and best absolute 

 insulation, while among fruits the apple, the pear, and the 

 quince, etc., are in the premier class. I have short- 

 circuited onions through 0-1 ohm for many days at a time 



