CONSTANT CHARACTER OF THE CURRENT — ELECTROLYTIC ACTION. 157 



seems very different from it, I mean convection. In the latter case the particles may 

 travel for yards across a chamber ; they may produce strong winds in the air, so as 

 to move machinery ; and in fluids, as oil of turpentine, may even shake the hand, and 

 carry heavy metallic bodies about* ; and yet 1 do not see that the force, either in kind 

 or action, is at all different to that by which a particle of hydrogen leaves one particle 

 of oxygen to go to another, or by which a particle of oxygen travels in the contrary 

 direction. 



1623. Travelling particles of the air can effect chemical changes just as well as the 

 contact of a fixed platina electrode, or that of a combining electrode, or the ions of 

 a decomposing electrolyte (453. 471.); and in the experiment formerly described, 

 where eight places of decomposition were rendered active by one current (469.), 

 and where charged particles of air in motion were the only electrical means of con- 

 necting these parts of the current, it seems to me that the action of the particles of 

 the electrolyte and of the air were essentially the same. A particle of air was ren- 

 dered positive ; it travelled in a certain determinate direction, and coming to an elec- 

 trolyte, communicated its powers ; an equal amount of positive force was accordingly 

 acquired by another particle (the hydrogen), and the latter, so charged, travelled as 

 the former did, and in the same direction, until it came to another particle, and trans- 

 ferred its power and motion, making that other particle active. Now, though the 

 particle of air travelled over a visible and occasionally a large space, whilst the par 

 tide of the electrolyte moved over an exceedingly small one ; though the air particle 

 might be oxygen, nitrogen, or hydrogen, receiving its charge from force of high in- 

 tensity, whilst the electrolytic particle of hydrogen had a natural aptness to receive 

 the positive condition with extreme facility ; though the air particle might be charged 

 with very little electricity at a very high intensity by one process, whilst the hydrogen 

 particle might be charged with much electricity at a very low intensity by another 

 process ; these are not differences of kind, as relates to the final discharging action 

 of these particles, but only of degree ; not essential differences which make things 

 unlike, but such differences as give to things, similar in their nature, that great va- 

 riety which fits them for their office in the system of the universe. 



1624. So when a particle of air, or of dust in it, electrified at a negative point, 

 moves on through the influence of the inductive forces (1572.) to the next po- 

 sitive surface, and after discharge passes away, it seems to me to represent exactly 

 that particle of oxygen which, having been rendered negative in the electrolyte, is 

 urged by the same disposition of inductive forces, and going to the positive platina 

 electrode, is there discharged, and then passes away, as the air or dust did be- 

 fore it. 



* If a metallic vessel three or four inches deep, containing oil of turpentine, be insulated and electrified, and 

 a rod with a ball (an inch or more in diameter) at the end have the ball immersed in the fluid whilst the end 

 is held in the hand, the mechanical force generated when the ball is moved to and from the sides of the vessel 

 will soon be evident to the experimenter. 



