Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism. 67 



and oxygen is liberated from it at the point of one wire, and hydrogen 

 at the point of the other; and this though a syphon of water be 

 interposed between them. This curious circumstance seems to evince 

 the existence of two electric ethers, which enter the water at different 

 ends of the syphon, and have chemical affinities to the component 

 parts of it; the resinous ether sets at liberty the hydrogen at one end, 

 and the vitreous ether the oxygen at the other end of the conducting 

 medium. 



Hence it must appear, that the longer the Galvanic pile, or the 

 greater the number of the alternate pieces of silver and zinc that it 

 consists of, the stronger will be the Galvanic shock; but there is 

 another circumstance difficult to explain, which is the perpetual de- 

 composition of water by the Galvanic pile; when water is made the 

 conducting medium between the two extremities of the pile. 



As no conductors of electricity are absolutely perfect, there must 

 be produced a certain accumulation of vitreous ether on one side of 

 each charged plate of the Galvanic pile, and of resinous ether on the 

 other side of it, before the discharge takes place, even though the 

 conducting medium be in apparent contact. When the discharge does 

 take place, the whole of the accumulated electricity explodes and 

 vanishes; and then an instant of time is required for the silver and 

 zinc again to attract from the air, or other bodies in their vicinity, 

 their spontaneous natural atmospheres, and then another discharge 

 ensues ; and so repeatedly and perpetually till the surface of one of 

 the metallic plates becomes so much oxydated or calcined, that it 

 ceases to act. 



Hence a perpetual motion may be said to be produced, with an 

 incessant decomposition of water into the two gasses of oxygen and 

 hydrogen; which must probably be constantly proceeding on all moist 

 surfaces, where a chain of electric conductors exists, surrounded with 

 different proportions of the two electric ethers. Whence the ceaseless 

 liberation of oxygen from the water has oxydated or calcined the 

 ores of metals near the surface of the earth, as of manganese, of zinc 

 into lapis calaminaris, of iron into various ochres, and other calci- 

 form ores. From this source also the corrosion of some metals may 

 be traced, when they are immersed in water in the vicinity of each 



