50 Dr. Hare on the Theories of Electrical. Phenomena. 
haying the power of those usually ascribed to a galvano-electri- 
cal current : 
69. It has been shown that both reason, and the researches 
and suggestions of Faraday, warrant the inference that pon-. 
\ , ; 
ming in an enormous quantity of condensed imponderable mat- 
ter, in which all the Berries whether ponderable or impondera- 
ble, are, in their natural sta eld in a certain relative position 
due to the reciprocal pete, of their dissimilar poles. A gal- 
vano-electrified body differs from one in its ordinary state, in 
having the relative position of the poles of its ethereo-ponderable 
atoms, so changed, that their inherent opposite polarities not 
being productive of reciprocal neutralization, a reaction with eXx- 
ternal bodies ensues. 
70. In statical excitement the affection is superficial as re- 
spects the ponderable bodies concerned, while in dynamic excite- 
ment the polarities of the whole mass are deranged oppositely at 
‘ epposite ends of the electrified mass; so that the oppositely dis- 
turbing impulses, proceeding from the poles of the disturbing ap 
paratus, neutralize each other intermediately. upposing the 
onderable as well as the imponderable matter in a perfect con- 
ductor, to be susceptible of the polar derangement, of which an 
electrified state is thus represented to consist, non-conductorseto 
“be insusceptible of such polar derangement ; imperfect Peed 
tors may have a constitution intermediate betw een metals” 
electrics. When an electrical discharge is made through. ae 
space devoid of air or other matter, it must then find its way 
solely by the polarization of the rare ipponderaple matter ex-.. 
isting therein; and consequently its coruscations should be pro- 
portionably more di fiuse, which is actually baad to be true ; but 
when gaseous ethereo-ponderable atoms intervene, oo enable 
competent waves to exist within a narrower channel , and to, . 
attain a greater intensity. I consider all bodies as insulators 
‘which cause discharges through them to be more difficult than 
through a vacuum, and which, by their interposition within a 
circuit, can prevent that propagation of the oppositely. polarizing 
undulations which would otherwise ens sue. This furnishes a 
good means of discrimination between insulators and conductors, 
the criterion gine that a discharge ensues more readily as there 
is more of the one and less of the other in the way: that the 
one leads the waves where they would not go, the other impedes 
their going where they would proceed. Both in the case of di- 
ruptive discharge through alr, producing a spark, or of a defla- 
grating discharge through Wire, causing its explosion, there is a 
dispersion of intervening ponderable particles; and yet there is 
this manifest discordancy, that in one ease the undulatory process a 
of transfer is assisted, in the other resisted. ee Pageatig a ow 
