Dr. Hare, on a recent " Speculation'^ hy Faraday. 247 



Art. II. — Remarks made hy Dr. Hare, at a late meetitig of 

 the American Philosophical Society, on a recent speculation by 

 Faraday on electric conduction and the nature of matter ; — 

 communicated by the Author. 



Philadelphia, Nov. 30, 1844. 



Messrs. Editors — At the last meeting of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, I made some verbal remarks on a recent " spec- 

 ulation" of the celebrated Faraday, published in the London and 

 Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine for February last. Of course 

 a brief notice will be given of those remarks in the bulletin of 

 the Proceedings. I send you for publication a statement of my 

 reasoning on the questions at issue, hoping that it will not be 

 found unworthy of the attention of philosophical chemists. 



Your friend, Robert Hare. 



Faraday objects to the Newtonian idea of an atom, being asso- 

 ciated with combining ratios. These he conceives to have 

 been more advantageously designated as chemical equivalents.* 



This sagacious investigator adverts to the fact that after each 

 atom in a mass of the metal potassium, has combined with an 

 atom of oxygen and an atom of water, forming thus a hydrated 

 oxide, the resulting aggregate occupies much less space than its 

 metallic ingredient previously occupied ; so that taking equal 

 bulks of the hydrate and of potassium, there will be in the metal 

 only four hundred and thirty metallic atoms, while in the hy- 

 drate there will be seven hundred such atoms. And in the latter, 

 besides the seven hundred atoms, there will be an equal num- 

 ber of aqueous and oxygenous atoms, in all two thousand eight 

 hundred ponderable atoms. It follows that if the atoms of po- 

 tassium are to be considered as minute impenetrable particles, 

 kept at certain distances by an equilibrium of forces, there must 

 be, in a mass of potassium, vastly more space than matter. More- 

 over, it is the space alone that can be continuous. The non- 

 contiguous material atoms cannot form a continuous mass. Con- 

 sequently the well known power of potassium to conduct elec- 

 tricity must be a quality of the continuous empty space, which 



* See his speculations touching electric conduction and the nature of matter, 

 Vol. 24, 3d series. Philosophical Magazine and Journal, February, 1844. 



