: aed 
— 
Dr. Hare on the Theories of Electrial Phenomena. 343 
Art. XXXVII.— Objections to the Theories severally of Frank- 
lin, Dufay and Ampére, with an Effort to Explain Electrical 
yg ena by Statical or Undulatory Polarization ; by Ros- 
- Ert Hare, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania.—Continued from p. 236. 
Supposed grounds for a Theory. 
28. The grounds upon which I venture to advance a theory, 
are as follows :— 
The existence of two heterogeneous polar forces acting in op- 
posite directions, and necessarily connate and co-existent; yet 
capable of reciprocal neutralization, agreeably to the authority of 
Faraday and others: the polarity of matter in general, ‘as display- 
ed during the crystallization and vegetation of salts: also as made 
evident by Faraday’s late researches, and the experiments and 
observations of Hunt: the very small proportion of the space in 
solids, as in the instance of potassium and other metals, which 
can be occupied by the ponderable atoms; while, agreeably to 
the researches and speculations of Faraday (rightly interpreted), 
the residual space must be replete with imponderable matter. 
‘he experiments and inferences of Davy and others, tending to 
Sanction the idea that an imponderable ethereal fluid must per- 
vade the creation : the perfect identity of the polarizing effects, 
transiently created in a wire by subjection to a galvanic discharge, 
with those produced by the permanent polarizing power of a steel 
magnet: the utter heterogeneousness of the powers of galvanic 
and frictional electricity, as respects ability to produce sparks 
before contact, and likewise of the polarities which they respect- 
ively produce: the superficiality of electricity proper during dis- 
charge as well as when existing upon insulated surfaces, as de- 
monstrated by atmospheric electricity when conveyed by tele- 
8taphic wires, agreeably to Henry: the sounds observed sever- 
ally, by Page, Henry, and Mairan, as being consequent to making 
and breaking a galvanic circuit through a conductor, or magneti- 
zing or demagnetizing by means of surrounding galvanized coils. 
Proofs of the existence of an enormous quantity of Imponderable 
Matter in Metals. 
29. It has been most sagaciously pointed out by Faraday, that 
four hundred and thirty atoms which form a cube of potassium in 
the metallic state, must occupy nearly six times as much space as 
the same number of similar atoms fill, when existing in a cube of 
hydrated oxyd of potassium of the same size; which, besides 
Seven hundred metallic atoms, must hold seven hundred atoms of 
hydrogen and fourteen hundred of oxygen, in all two thousand 
®ight hundred atoms ; whence it follows that, in the metallic cube, 
