278 Researches in the Theory and Calculus of Operations. 



yields one of these kinds of vibration will incontinently 

 produce also the other, and thus electricity and heat are 

 concomitant or transitional phenomena. 



The catalytic phenomenon which occurs when a mixture 

 of oxygen and hydrogen is ignited by the introduction of a 

 leaf of platinum, may be explained from the fact that pla- 

 tinum is a rapid conductor of force, and precipitates the 

 energy of the oxygen upon the hydrogen with greater swift- 

 ness than it can pass between the gaseous particles them- 

 selves. The phenomena of osmose will have a kindred in- 

 terpretation. 



18. The difference of behaviour between perfect and 

 imperfect conductors or electrics in the velocity of transmis- 

 sion of electric force may perhaps be explained. Recurring 

 to our exemplary sphere submitted to impact, as the sphere 

 is the sum of its atoms, the latter may be conceived as all 

 merged together into the one great atom constituting the 

 entire sphere with common centre at O. In this view, the 

 compression caused by an impulsion will proceed at once 

 all the way from surface to centre of the sphere, without 

 stopping in alternations at atomic centres, and the whole 

 impulse is responded to by a single and equal projection in 

 the opposite half of the sphere. 



Conductors may be co averted into electrics by means of 

 strong pressure, which increases the density of the substance 

 by developing atoms and crowding them upon one another. 

 In the perfect conductor, such atoms do not exist, and the 

 entering force is transmitted directly from a point to a dis- 

 tant one, without arousing alternate positive and negative 

 actions on the line of direction ; indeed the whole line con- 

 ducting as one wave reaching its termination at the farther 

 point in question, being followed up in its course by the 

 continuous renewal of the force generated by the transmit- 

 ting substance itself, as has already been described. But 

 when pressure is applied to such a substance, its first effect 



