32 LETTEKS OF BEKZELIUS 



In a comparatively short time, that is to say in less 

 than a month, Schonbein received the following reply, 

 which reached Bale on the 25th of November. 



IV 

 Berzelius to Schonbein 



STOCKHOLM, I3th November 1838. 



DEAK SIB, 



I am greatly indebted to you for your 

 interesting communication of 14th October. 



The polarization observed in the case of the so- 

 called liquid conductors is an experimental proof of 

 an assumption which, in my opinion, is quite essen- 

 tial to the theory of the electrical battery. I am 

 confident that it may be taken as proved beyond 

 a doubt that all substances, from the metals to the 

 worst conductors, as glass and resin, are capable of 

 assuming electric polarity, which will have a greater 

 tension and last the longer the greater their 

 resistance. This polarity is produced by every 

 disturbance of electric equilibrium, but the less 

 resistance a body has, the more rapidly does it dis- 

 appear, and the less is its tension. Hence the great 

 difficulty of actually exhibiting it in the case of good 

 conductors. But it is precisely this property of a 

 liquid or moist conductor on which the phenomena 

 of a hydro-electric pile depend, whether the initial 

 destruction of electrical equilibrium is due to contact 

 electricity or to chemical action ; and without it the 



