ee -ie 
aii Ure 
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46 Dr. Hare on the Theories of Electrical Phenomena. 
faces must undergo a similar movement, by an ——" reac- 
tion with poles of an opposite c character, and this movement 
must extend through the negative plate to the conductor, by 
which it communicates with the zinc or electro-positive plate. 
When the circuit is open, the power of combination exercised by 
the zinc and oxygen is inadequate to produce this movement in 
the whole chain of atoms, liquid and metallic ; but as it is indif- 
ferent whether any two atoms are united with each other, or 
with any other atoms of the same kind, the chemical force easily 
causes them to exchange partners, as it. were, when the whole 
are made to form a circuitous row in due contiguity. 
59. As we know that during their union with oxygen, metals 
give out an enormous quantity of heat and electricity, it is reason- 
able to suppose that whenever an atom of oxygen and an atom 
of zine jump into union with each other, a wave is induced in 
the ethereo-ponderable matter, and that this wave is sustained by 
the decompositions and recompositions by means of which an 
atom of hydrogen is evolved, at the negative plate and probably 
enabled to assume the aériform state. ‘There must, at the same 
time, be a communication of wave polarity by contact of the 
— plate with the egy wire, by which the positive 
the. wire is induced. ough the sebecont plone 
of ne ge ey are not, agreeably *- this view, the mo 
in galvanism, yet they facilitate, and in some cases Fe the ex- 
ercise of that power, by enabling it to act at a distance, when 
otherwise it might remain inert. 
60. This, I conceive is shown in the effect of platina sponge 
upon a mixture of the gaseous elements of water; also in Grove’s 
gas battery, by means of which hydrogen and oxygen gas sever- 
ally react with water in syphons, so as to cause each other to 
eondense, without any communication besides that through the 
platina, and an electrolytic decomposition and recomposition ex- 
tending from one of the aqueous surfaces in contact with one of 
the gases, to the other surface in contact with the other gas. 
Difference between edge: and E'thereo-ponderable Po- 
There are two species of eae which come un- 
pe os head of statical electricity. One of these Faraday illus- 
trates by supposing three bodies, A, B and C, in proximity, but 
not in contact, when A, Te electrified, eletisiées B, and B = 
trifies C by induction. ‘This araday ¢ calls an action of the 
ticles of the bodies eon whereas, by his own premises, it 
appears to me to be merely a superficial affection of the masses 
or of a circumambient ethereal matter. This species of polariza- 
