100 M. E. Edlund on the Nature of Electricity. 



when produced by positive and when by negative electricity has 

 been regarded as a proof of the existence of two electric fluids. 

 Eut, as we know that the difference disappears in a vacuum, it 

 seems impossible to draw from it any certain conclusion for or 

 against either opinion. It is doubtless the same with some other 

 phenomena to which it has been thought we ought to attach 

 some importance with respect to the matter in question. 



On the other hand, several phenomena decidedly support the 

 opinion that the substance which constitutes the basis of electric 

 phenomena is simple and indivisible. We note, among others, 

 the fact studied by Wiedemann and other physicists, that a 

 liquid traversed by a galvanic current is mechanically impelled 

 in the direction of the positive current. To account for this it 

 is necessary to admit that the negative current does not possess 

 this property at all, or at least that it possesses it only in a less 

 degree — although for the explanation of several other phenomena 

 it must be admitted that the positive and the negative currents 

 behave identically in relation to matter. With the circumstance 

 just stated is connected the known fact that the positive pole of 

 a voltaic battery, and the positive knob in the formation of sparks, 

 are principally, if not almost exclusively, corroded and destroyed. 

 In the second part of this memoir we shall give the explanation 

 of the fact that the negative pole is not left altogether intact, as 

 well as of the phenomena investigated in so remarkable a man- 

 ner by M. Quincke*. The idea which has been formed of the 

 mode of propagation of the positive and negative current in op- 

 posite directions in a conductor is by no means simple, and is 

 consequently any thing but natural. The explanation of these 

 phenomena is infinitely more easy to understand by admitting 

 the presence of one electric fluid only. The existence of the 

 aether is as certain as that of the atmosphere which encompasses 

 our globe. If, then, it is possible to prove that the phenomena 

 of electricity can have their source in the sether, we may be per- 

 fectly well assured that there exists no special electric fluid ; for 

 if nature can produce certain phenomena by means of one agent 

 only, she will not employ two. 



[To be continued.] 

 * Pogg. Jww.vol. cxiii. p. 513 (18f)l). 



I 



