Dr. Hare on the Theories of Electrical Phenomena. 345 
olarizatio 
34. It having been shown that in electrical discharges there 
cannot reasonably be any transfer of matter, so as to justify the 
idea of their being effected either by one current or by two cur- 
rents, the only alternative seems to be that the phenomena are 
due to a progressive affection of the conducting medium, anal- 
ogous in its mode of propagation to waves, as in the case of 
liquids, or the aérial or ethereal undulations to which sound and 
light are ascribed. (1, 2, 3, &c. &e.) 
35. The idea intended to be conveyed by the word wave, as 
applied in common to the undulatory affections above mentioned, 
and that which is conceived to be the cause of the phenomena 
usually ascribed to one or more electrical currents, requires only 
at there should be a state of matter, which, while it may be 
utterly different from either of those which constitute the waves 
of water, light or sound, may, nevertheless, like either, pass suc- 
cessively from one portion of a mass to another. = 
The affection thus designated may be reasonably distin- 
guished from other waves, as a wave of polarization, since the 
wire acts, so long as subjected to the reiterated discharges of a 
Voltaic series, as if it were converted into innumerable small 
Electrical Phenomena attributed to Stationary, or Undulatory 
2. 
and Huygens, that an ethereal matter susceptible of electrical 
affections fills all space.” 3 
38. Agreeably to the suggestions above made, all ponderable 
Matter which is liable to be electrified internally by electrical 
Fa to exist betwe 
ing expansion, liquidity or the aériform state. Atoms so consti- 
