506 



obtained) it appears to me that voltaic electricity, like heat or light, 

 may be viewed as consisting of vibrations or successive impulses, 

 which under ordinary circumstances occupy so minute a period of 

 time as to be inappreciable, but when acting under suitable condi- 

 tions upon suitable substances, such as the metal and liquid referred 

 to (1), the vibrations of the current are taken up by the substances, 

 and the oscillations of the substances thereby produced are gradually 

 increased by the synchronous impulses of the current until they 

 become visible and attain their maximum (see paper " On the pro- 

 duction of Vibrations and Sounds by Electrolysis/' paragraph 1 1), 

 like visible oscillations of a pendulum produced by minute syn- 

 chronous mechanical impulses. This I beg leave to state as an 

 hypothesis for the purpose of making the subject more clear and 

 aiding future inquiry. 



Note by the Communicator. 



[The results mentioned in this paper are well worthy of attentive 

 consideration, in relation to that curious and still mysterious pheno- 

 menon which the author is investigating with so much care. As 

 regards, however, the conjecture thrown out by the author, while the 

 importance of such a conclusion as that of the existence of qualitative 

 differences in permanent electric currents, according as few or many 

 voltaic elements are concerned in their formation, or of periodicity 

 as a necessary condition of a voltaic current, if fully established, 

 cannot be overrated, the conclusion does not seem to the Communi- 

 cator of the paper to be fairly deducible from the experiments de- 

 scribed. It would rather seem that, from some cause yet to be 

 investigated, the motion of the mercurial cathode, or rather the 

 change of figure resulting from the motion, alters the total electro- 

 motive force or resistance (more probably the resistance) in the 

 circuit, and thus, by altering the current, reacts upon the forces 

 whereby the motion of the cathode is produced. In a circuit of 

 small resistance, it might be expected according to this view that a 

 smaller motion of the cathode would suffice to bring about a given 

 change in the current, and a corresponding change in the force pro- 

 ducing the motion, and accordingly that the period of the changes 

 would be shorter than in a circuit of greater resistance, although the 



