614 Transactions of the American Institute. 



examiner supposing that the eftects claimed were impossible; and it 

 was not until good affidavits were produced that the patent was 

 {granted. But the time has now come when doubtinsr Thomases 

 must succumb to the power of truth. 



In addition to much positive testimony published in the West, 

 where the method has been thoroughly tried, we now have living 

 witnesses and standing monuments in this city, to whom any one, 

 desirous of learning the truth, may refer. The effects of six cups 

 of Daniels' battery (arranged for quantity), in breaking up and 

 removing the incrustation from the boiler of the steamer Santee, 

 running between this city and New London, Coim., also that at the 

 Delamater Iron Works, at the foot of Thirteenth street, North 

 liver, has been what the agent, who put the appliance in operation, 

 anticipated, and all that the owners could desire. It was only 

 yesterday that Mr. Mulford, one of the proprietors of the above 

 iron works, informed me that it had completely fulfilled their most 

 anxious expectations; that at first the crust was from an eighth 

 to three-sixteenths of an inch thick; and that it was soon observed, 

 on blowing off", that the crust was breaking up and coming away; 

 and that at the last openmg the inner surface of the boiler was per- 

 fectly clean, and was as smooth and shining as though it had had a 

 fine black polish. He further stated that now the facility in raising 

 steam is much increased. 



Here we have a new application of electricity to useful purposes, 

 and the discovery of a fact hitherto unknown in physical forces. 



Physics teach us facts and phenomena ; natural philosophy 



teaches how to account for facts and phenomena. I am not aware 



that any pliilospher has yet satisfactorily accounted for the physical 



fact given above; but we are all at liberty to entertain our own 



■ hypotheses, and I will venture to suggest one: 



It is well known that substances in opposite electrical states 

 attract each other. Such state or condition is always present in all 

 cases of aggregation, accretion or growth. The process of incrus- 

 tation is due to some slight disturbance in the electric equilibrium 

 between the shell of the boiler and the saline or earthy matters in 

 the water. The shell being in connection Avith the earth, is always 

 in a fixed electrical state; but evaporation in the boiler so changes 

 the condition of the matters contained in the water as to admit of 

 their attraction to and accretion upon the boiler. 



In making the boiler a part of a galvanic circuit, the current per- 

 vades and passes through, not only the shell, but the water and all 



