Electric Currents. 53 



static condition, like the magnet, and electrical 

 lines of force are reaching out from both wires 

 so that the ether is in a state of strain between 

 the two poles. The air molecules may partake 

 of it, but we have to bring in the ether as a 

 substance, because the same conditions would 

 practically exist if the two wires were in a 

 vacuum. If now we connect the two wires, we 

 have established a metallic circuit between the 

 two poles of the battery, the static conditions 

 are relieved, the lines of force are gathered 

 up into the wire, and the phenomenon that we 

 call a current is established and we have dy- 

 namic or moving electricity. 



] laving established the so-called electric cur- 

 rent we will now try to show you that there 

 really is no current. The idea of a current in- 

 volves the idea of a fluid substance flowing from 

 one point to another. When you were a boy did 

 you never set up a row of bricks on their ends, 

 just far enough apart so that if you pushed 

 one over they all fell one after another ? Now, 

 imagine rows of molecules or atoms, and in 

 y..ur imagination they may be arranged like 

 the bricks, so that they are affected one by the 

 other successively with a rapidity that is akin 

 to that of light-waves, and you can conceive 

 how a motion may be communicated from end 

 to end of a wire hundreds of miles in length in 

 a small fraction of a second, and no material 

 has been carried through the wire 



