ELECTROLYTIC CONDUCTION OR DISCHARGE. 91 



of bodies, to those already described as constituting induction and insulation, than 

 one independent of and distinct from these phenomena. 



1344. Electrolytes, as respects their insulating and conducting forces, belong to the 

 general category of bodies (1320. 1334.); and if they are in the solid state (as nearly 

 all can assume that state), they retain their place, presenting then no new phenomenon 

 (426, &c.) ; or if one occur being in so small a proportion as to be almost unimportant. 

 When liquefied, they also belong to the same list whilst the electric intensity is below 

 a certain degree ; but at a given intensity (910. 912. IOO7.), fixed for each, and very 

 low in all known cases, they play a new part, causing discharge in proportion (783.) 

 to the development of certain chemical effects of combination and decomposition ; 

 and at this point, move out from the general class of insulators and conductors, to 

 form a distinct one by themselves. The former phenomena have been considered 

 (1320. 1338.) ; it is the latter which have now to be revised, and used as a test of the 

 proposed theory of induction. 



1345. The theory assumes, that the particles of the dielectric (now an electrolyte) 

 are in the first instance brought, by ordinary inductive action, into a polarized state, 

 and raised to a certain degree of tension or intensity before discharge commences ; 

 the inductive state being, in fact, a necessary preliminary to discharge. By taking 

 advantage of those circumstances which bear upon the point, it is not difficult to in- 

 crease the tension indicative of this state of induction, and so make the state itself 

 more evident. Thus, if distilled water be employed, and a long narrow portion of it 

 placed between the electrodes of a powerful voltaic battery, we have at once indica- 

 tions of the intensity which can be sustained at these electrodes by the inductive ac- 

 tion through the water as a dielectric, for sparks may be obtained, gold leaves di- 

 verged, and Leyden bottles charged at their wires. The water is in the condition of 

 the spermaceti (1322. 1323.), a bad conductor and a bad insulator; but what it does 

 insulate is by virtue of inductive action, and that induction is the preparation for and 

 precursor of discharge (1338.). 



1346. The induction and tension which appear at the limits of the portion of 

 water in the direction of the current, are only the sums of the induction and ten- 

 sion of the contiguous particles between those limits ; and the limitation of the in- 

 ductive tension, to a certain degree shows (time entering in each case as an important 

 element of the result), that when the particles have acquired a certain relative state, 

 discharge, or a transfer of forces equivalent to ordinary conduction, takes place. 



1347. In the inductive condition assumed by water before discharge comes on, the 

 particles polarized are the particles of the water, that being the dielectric used ; but 

 the discharge between particle and particle is not, as before, a mere interchange of 

 their powers or forces at the polar parts, but an actual separation of them into their 

 two elementary particles, the oxygen travelling in one direction, and carrying with 

 it its amount of the force it had acquired during the polarization, and the hydrogen 

 doing the same thing in the other direction, until they each meet the next approaching 



n2 • 



