‘ 408 - Pirgeecdinis TL the British Association 
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wes veléet rodes ; others, again. suppose that the electricities at the ex- 
_,tremities of the. pile are dissipated in the earth, in the same manner as 
the, electricity of the conductor of an electrical enhine: This second 
es Sihepian nation, will not bear the slightest examination, norcan it be made to ~ 
~ tally with the results of the. most elementary pie aioe relative to the 
Finally, according to this explanation, the resistance of the metallic part 
of a mixed circuit ought t to di isappear,—a thing: which ne ever happens. I 
- think that | may be of the good con- 
: Ss ducting power of the ‘earth, founding my assertions on very simple ex- 
periments and on theoretical views already known. As. long ago. as. 1837, 
proved in a memoir published in the Annales de Physique et.de Chimie, 
that in operating on a certain liquid mass, very co onsidérable compared 
‘ with the distance of the electrodes plunged in it, theilength of the inter- 
mediate liquid stratum has no sensible influence. on the. intensity of the 
ent. 1 have recently verified this result on a very large scale. 
had a wooden case made seven metres in the side. I keep this case — 
isolated from the earth, and filled with water. Operati ing on this mass 
of 
of water, we find that the resistance of a certain stratum water, 
variable within certain limits, is independent of its length. . In like 
pote: in diameter from 2°™ to 30 or 40°™, I have found that the 
of these spherical masses of water wa s the same, and inde- 
pee of their diameter. I have already said that this result may be 
de duced from the e theory, and this is done as follows :—From the same 
ductor of an electrical machine in action, and at the other extremity with 
the earth, than to the case of the electrical current defined by its electro- 
chemical, and electro-magnetical action ; it is no less true that a certain 
number of the phenomena of the electrical circuit are explained by 
representing the propagation of the hesrseagy current by the same equa- 
tion given by Fourier in his theory of heat. Among these phenomena, ; 
may be placed lectricity — 
the fundamental law of the propagation of e ity 
