414 Hare's Calorimotor. 



to a point imperceptible to the naked eye. If already so 

 highly intense, wherefore the necessity of a further concen- 

 tration ? Besides, were the distinction made by Dr. Thomson 

 correct, the more concentrated fluid generated by a galvanic 

 apparatus of a great many small pairs, ought most to resemble 

 that of the ordinary electricity ; but the opposite is the case. 

 The ignition produced by a few large Galvanic plates, where 

 the intensity is of course low, is a result most analogous to the 

 chemical effects of a common electrical battery. According 

 to my view, caloric and electricity may be distinguished by 

 the following characteristics. The former permeates all 

 matter more or less, though with very different degrees of 

 facility. It radiates through air, with immeasurable celerity, 

 and distributing itself in the interior of bodies, communicates 

 a reciprocally repellent power to atoms, but not to masses. 

 Electricity does not radiate in or through any matter ; and 

 while it pervades some bodies, as metals, with almost infinite 

 velocity ; by others, it is so far from being conducted, that it 

 can only pass through them by a fracture or perforation. 

 Distributing itself over surfaces only, it causes repulsion be- 

 tween masses, but not between the particles of the same 

 mass. The dispositiuu vC the last-mentioned principle to get 

 off by neighbouring conductors, and of the other to combine 

 with the adjoining matter, or to escape by radiation, would 

 prevent them from being collected at the positive pole, if not 

 in combination with each other. Were it not for a modifica- 

 tion of their properties, consequent to some such union, they 

 could not, in piles of thousands of pairs, be carried forward 

 through the open air and moisture ; the one so well calculated 

 to conduct away electricity, the other so favourable to the 

 radiation of caloric. 



Pure electricity does not expand the slips of gold-leaf, be- 

 tween which it causes repulsion, nor does caloric cause any 

 repulsion in the ignited masses which it expands. But as the 

 compound fluid extricated by Galvanic action, which I shall 

 call electro-caloric, distributes itself through the interior of 

 bodies, and is evidently productive of corpuscular repulsion, 

 it is in this respect more allied to caloric than to electricity. 



