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190 COMMUNICATIONS BY 



made known, it is clearly free from certain objections urged 

 against the first experiments, and is selected under an impression 

 that, if these conditions fail to show that the electric current is 

 the agent by which the laws of organization have been promoted, 

 then we have— maugre the Baconian philosophy — already trusted 

 too much to experimental facts, with a view to the establishment 

 of truth. 



It is by no means easy, even if practicable, independent of 

 sketches, to convey a precise idea of the apparatus employed in 

 the experiment I am about to communicate. I will, nevertheless, 

 attempt to describe it with as much brevity and plainness as 

 possible. In the first place, I must mention that the arrange- 

 ments were originally of a threefold character: — 1st, A close 

 vessel containing a saline solution, and above it an artificial 

 atmosphere; 2nd, An open vessel containing the same solution, 

 both acted upon by the same current passing through them from 

 a voltaic battery ; 3rd, Two glass jars standing on the same table, 

 as negative tests, and in every way corresponding with the respec- 

 tive primary vessels, excepting that they had no wire appendages, 

 and were unelectrified. 



The close vessel consists of a wide-mouthed glass jar, capable of 

 containing a pint and a half of liquid, and is manufactured from 

 the purest and most transparent material. From the top, or 

 shoulder of this jar, ascends, to the height of an inch from the 

 surrounding surface, a remarkably stout and strong neck, which 

 presents an opening of two inches diameter. Into this opening 

 a thick metallic plug or stopper, cast from "fusible alloy," is 

 fitted perfectly air-tight, by a process of long and careful grind- 

 ing. Perpendicularly through the metallic stopper, and at the 

 distance of an inch from each other, so as to occupy the extremes 

 of an equilateral triangle, are drilled three holes, each rather 

 more than two-tenths of an inch diameter, and into each of these 

 is soldered, air-tight, a corresponding glass tube. The two prin- 

 cipal of this series of tubes serve the purpose of insulating a pair 

 of stout copper wires, which pass longitudinally through them, 



