1865.] Physics. 501 



A note has been read at one of the late meetings of the Acadeniie 

 des Sciences, by M. De la Eive, " On the Conduction of Electricity 

 by Metallic Vapours." These, the author shows, have the same or 

 nearly the same conducting power as the metals in the solid state. 

 The metals were vapourized by the voltaic arc, and on endeavouring 

 to produce the arc with points made of various alloys, the author ob- 

 served that the alloy was always decomposed. To observe this pheno- 

 menon better, he employed a plate of coke for a negative electrode, 

 and the alloy for the positive, and then was able to collect the two 

 metals which deposited separately on the coke. 



At the meeting of the Academy of Sciences, held April 17th, M. E. 

 Martin presented a memoir, entitled " An Electro-chemical Study of 

 real Simple Bodies, Ponderable and Imponderable, divided into Two 

 Classes by Peculiar Affinities." The author has arrived at a new 

 science of electro-chemistry, based on the following assumptions, or, 

 as he regards them, proved facts : — 1. That the two electricities are 

 not forces, but simple material bodies endowed with chemical pro- 

 perties, by virtue of which they form compounds with simple ponder- 

 able bodies. 2. That the two electric fluids of the battery are not 

 produced by any physical action, but by a chemical action of the 

 ponderable bodies which hold them in combination, and which, by 

 uniting with each other, set the electricities at liberty. 3. That these 

 same electricities collected by conductors, and transmitted in currents, 

 participate directly in the actions they produce, and combine chemi- 

 cally with the elements they disunite. We may quote the decom- 

 position and comj)osition of water as an illustration of the author's 

 views. Negative electricity he distinguishes as electrile, and gives it 

 the symbol El ; positive electricity is etherile, symbol Et. The 

 formula of hydrogen becomes, therefore, HE1, and that of oxygen 

 OEt. The two electricities arriving at opposite poles, attracts in the 

 decomposition each its proper element, and we have 



HO + El + Et = HE1+ OEt. 



The two electricities in uniting with each other produce caloric, 

 symbol C*, and light, L*. Here, then, are the essential principles of 

 electro-chemistry : two electricities possessing peculiar and invariable 

 affinities which unite with each other to form two imponderable com- 

 pounds, heat and light, and with simple ponderable bodies also endowed 

 with peculiar affinities of two kinds. We have thus two classes of 

 bodies : — 1. Oxic, which includes electrile, an imponderable body, and 

 six ponderable elements, oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, iodine, bromine, 

 and nitrogen ; 2. Basic, which includes etherile, a simple imponder- 

 able body, the basic metalloids, hydrogen, carbon, boron, phosphorus, 

 sulphur, selenium, and silicium, and all the metals. The author con- 

 cludes — until now chemists have only recognized the effects of chemical 

 union, but have never before discovered the cause— now the cause is 

 manifest ; bodies of the same kind are indifferent to each other, but 

 they unite themselves with all bodies of the opposite kind, and the 



