318 Researches in the Theory and Calculus of Operations, 



the average phase. This circuit forms the telegraph of the 

 animal cosmos, communicating signals and calls of duty to 

 the disturbed stations (Cabanis). 



37. When a volume of water is placed between the two 

 poles of an electrical machine or galvanic battery, the 

 atoms of water on the intervening line are successively de- 

 composed into hydrogen and oxygen in the order of direc- 

 tion from the positive to the negative pole, but are succes- 

 sively instantaneously recomposed into the original com- 

 pound hydric oxide. Suppose the water replaced by an 

 isomeric fluid, the decomposed atoms could be recom- 

 pounded in different multiple proportions, while transmit- 

 ting the electric current as before. Thus would be formed 

 a line of atoms possessing a new quality ; and as the amount 

 of transmitted force is neither increased nor diminished, 

 the process, once started by any means electrical or chemi- 

 cal, would persist to the terminal border of the medium 

 operated in. The process itself prevails abundantly in 

 chemical and vital physics. In its simplest or linear form, it 

 is instanced in the formation of branching crystals ; the 

 propagation of vegetal or animal cells into a threadlike 

 fibre or capillary tube, or even into a thin membrane, all 

 of which arise from the adaptation of cells to a new form 

 under the influence of pressure and expansion, etc. But 

 when the atomical decompositions are not held to a polar 

 direction, the incipient propagation extends into general 

 space throughout the invaded medium, as in the accretion 

 of regular crystals, the progress of fermentation, the spread 

 of cryptogamic growths, etc. etc. In the operation, the ele- 

 mentary atomic forces are recompounded in different pro- 

 portion, then settle in a newly arranged equilibrium, and 

 quiet reigns as before. 



38. In the arrangement of the galvanic circle, the jars 

 all contain the same kinds of fluid and metallic elements, 

 and each vessel adds its own effect to the common stock of 



