ON GALVANISM AND ELECTRICITY. ] go 



fcefore they return to the point of departure on the decompo- 

 sing plate; and this after having travelled together, though 

 no doubt with different velocities, along the negative wire. 

 For this effect the wires must not be interrupted by substan- & there be no 

 ces, that the current unites, or separates ; for in this case it ^bsuv'cc^that 

 quits, at lea t in part, the substance it transports, either to the current 

 enter into combination with one of the principles of the sub- U a "g S es or!,e P a " 

 stance it would decompose, or to transform itself into heat, 

 and raise the temperature of the principles it would dispose 

 to unite. 



I have said, that the two principles of the substance em- The elements 



ployed in the moistening solution meet without uniting, separated do 

 \. T J , T • . ....... ° not properly 



Mot that I mean to assert they proceed in opposite direc- me et, but one 



tions; for nothing would be more absurd than to suppose, passes by the 

 that the negative of the pile, which is a nonentity, a nega- 

 tion of quality, a privation of power, can convey a substance ; 

 or even that a body can slide along a wire, because it is de- 

 prived of the electric fluid : but the two principles are car- 

 ried along by the fluid, which passes along the positive wire 

 to return to the plate from which it set out, but carried with 

 unequal velocities. This difference of velocity would not be 

 sufficient to prevent these principles from meeting with each 

 other, unless the separation was made in a single instant, or 

 all at once: but as this separation takes place in an infinite The acid 

 number of instants, and almost without interval, it is not passes by the 

 possible that the acid for example, which is conveyed first, a 

 or with the greatest velocity, since it arrives first at the in- 

 terposed tube, should not gain upon the alkali separated im- 

 mediately before it, and pass by it, or unite with it, if it 

 could unite with it. The current then passes along the two 

 wires, and in the same direction, as if they were a single 

 wire ; and the negative state advances on the wire termed 

 negative only in proportion as the positive state withdraws 

 itself from the pile to advance on the positive wire. These 

 wires then are to be considered only as prolongations of the 

 two opposite states of the apparatus. 



To return to the experiments of Pacchiani. Do you not The acid not 

 perceive, that they, who reject his conclusions, yet admit the derived frcm 

 production of an acid, are chargeable with a forced expla- p i eces 

 nation, when they ascribe the origin of this acid to the sub- 

 stance 



