Experimental Researches in Electricity. 359 



position ?" These two questions contain the genus of that 

 electro-chemical theory which is developed in detail in a 

 subsequent series ; and several anomalies are adverted to by 

 Faraday, which he did not remove until a future period. It 

 is interesting, however, to remark the dawning of those 

 comprehensive views which have wrought an entire revolu- 

 tion in chemical science, and to observe how their first 

 beginnings were derived from the happy and determined 

 working out of an incidental observation, whose importance 

 would in all probability have escaped a mind less acute 

 than that of Faraday. Such a contemplation of " the day 

 of small things" in science, affords at once a lesson to in- 

 struct, and an example to encourage us : it tells us of the 

 importance of tracing any unusual result into all its various 

 relations and connections ; and it brightens our hopes, by 

 shewing us, how great may be the consequences of assidu- 

 ously and perseveringly pursuing this principle, in our 

 researches, whatever the nature or field of these may be. 



The law we have been adverting to, exhibits a singular 

 relation between the power of conducting electricity and 

 that of conducting heat, and seems to imply a natural de- 

 pendence between the two. et As the solid becomes a fluid, 

 it loses almost entirely the power of conduction for heat, 

 but gains in a high degree that for electricity; but as it 

 reverts back to the solid state, it gains the power of con- 

 ducting heat, and loses that of conducting electricity. If 

 therefore the properties are not incompatible, still they are 

 most strongly contrasted ; one being lost, as the other is 

 gained. We may hope, perhaps, hereafter, to understand 

 the physical reason of this very extraordinary relation of the 

 two conducting powers, both of which appear to be directly 

 connected with the corpuscular condition of the substances 

 concerned." 



Were we disposed to indulge in speculation, we might 

 dwell at some length on the interesting relation these views 



