1 881 .] The Source of Electric Energy. 461 
I do wish to point out the necessity of balancing honest 
thought with a due weight of honest fadt. 
That, then, is the old method; what is the new? The 
answer to this question contains the golden rule of geology. 
Read the riddle of the past by the light of the facts of to-day . 
[The rest of the paper consisted of a description of ice- 
adtion in the past as illustrated by a careful study of the 
ice-adtion of to-day.] 
III. THE SOURCE OF ELECTRIC ENERGY. 
By Charles Morris. 
(Continued from page 391.) 
HERE a charged conductor adts upon an uncharged 
body the same law is obeyed. If the condudtor be 
positively charged it affedts the molecules of the 
other body, the adjacent poles becoming negatively, the 
remote poles positively, charged. This primary adtion is 
followed by a secondary adtion of condudtion and neutrali- 
sation between the poles of anterior molecules, and only the 
charge of the surface molecules persists, this being negative 
on the adjacent surface and positive on the remote surface. 
If, now, this remote surface be connedted with the earth its 
charge disappears, the effedt being simply an immense in- 
crease of surface. On this connection being again broken, 
the condudtor remains in the apparently anomalous condition 
of possessing a negative charge on one surface and being 
destitute of charge elsewhere. It might be imagined that a 
new indudtion would take place through the neutral body, 
with a reprodudtion of its former state ; but the fadt is that, 
through the loss of the positive induced force, the negative 
induced force has become negative charge. The case has 
become changed from that of a positively charged body 
adting upon an uncharged, to that of a positive adting upon 
a negative charge. And this negative charge is just suffi- 
cient to balance the indudtion of the positive body. The 
indudtive adtion continues, but the positive induced energy 
of the remote surface is exadtly balanced by the negative 
