92 Relations between Chemical Change, [January, 



longer before it begins its work ; but the work, once begun, 

 goes on at an equal pace ? If this be not so, then all the 

 long-established elementary laws of definite electrolytic 

 action Nare wrong. And so, also, if, instead of inserting more 

 voltameters, we increased the distance of the poles in a 

 single voltameter, so as to increase the resistance, we should 

 in the same way increase the distance to which an equivalent 

 of zinc could convey an equivalent of silver, and so make 

 every equivalent of zinc do any number of times the amount 

 of work it did before. And we have nothing to do but to 

 increase the size of the electrodes and dimensions of the 

 vessels containing them to make an equivalent of zinc 

 convey any number of equivalents of silver any distance in 

 any time. Electrolytic experiments have usually been 

 carried on with the poles on a horizontal level. It would 

 be curious to try what effect would be produced if one pole 

 were placed over the other, so that the silver had to be 

 lifted up, instead of conveyed horizontally. Would the 

 power of the electric force be as indifferent to the force of 

 gravity as it is to the resistance of the liquid to the horizontal 

 motion of the silver ? Where there is no opposing electro- 

 motive force at work, no resistance or length of circuit, less 

 than infinite, can reduce the electrolytic or magnetic force 

 to nil ; and at every point in the circuit, however long the 

 circuit be, this force is equal, and equal in equal lengths. 



Even supposing the poles in a voltameter to be placed one 

 over the other, vertically, one would say, judging from all 

 analogy, that the only result would be that it would merely 

 give an additional resistance to the circuit, and so diminish 

 the intensity and rate of working ; but that still an equivalent 

 of each element of an electrolyte would be conveyed in 

 each cell according to Faraday's law. And to counteract 

 this additional resistance all we have to do is to enlarge our 

 cells and plates. The experiment of placing the electrodes 

 in a voltameter of nitrate of silver or sulphate of copper 

 vertically over one another would seem to be almost an 

 experimentum crucis of the truth of the theory of a mechanical 

 equivalent of heat. 



ii. Does there not, then, exist a power in nature for force 

 to multiply force — even in the same way as life is multiplied 

 by life through successive generations, and one living being 

 may in due time become a thousand without losing its own 

 I vital energy ? Or, again, as one magnet may make a thousand 

 other magnets, and yet all the while rather increase than 

 diminish its own strength ? Conservation of energy is true 

 in mechanics. A pound weight at a metre of height from 



