i88i.] 
The Source of Electric Energy. 467 
In a galvanic battery, for instance, the current produced is 
only that of the terminal cells of the battery. The internal 
cells add nothing to the volume of the current. Each of 
these, in fact, sends positive energies in one direction to 
meet the negative sent in the opposite direction by the next 
cell. Neutralisation, therefore, takes place between every 
two cells, and only the energy of the terminal cells flows 
over the wire. Thus each two cells act in the same manner 
as each two molecules in the above hypothesis, and the 
energy produced by the chemical adtion in each two becomes 
heat in the intermediate condudtor. The only advantage of 
a many-celled battery is that each assists in the polarising 
adtion, so that the polarisation of the intermedium becomes 
great, and resistance to eledtric transfer correspondingly 
decreased. A like condition exists in the thermo-electric 
circuit. The current is only that of the terminal pairs, each 
intermediate pair adting the part of two intermediate mole- 
cules in a circuit. But increase in the number of pairs adds 
to the polarisation of the molecules of the circuit, and there- 
fore to the eledtromotive force. 
We have, thus, the following significant indications of the 
real process of eledtric conduction. In the case of static 
eledtric charge there appears to be molecular neutralisation 
of the eledtric disturbance internally, so that only the surface 
charge persists. In the galvanic current that portion which 
passes through compound liquids does so without any definite 
transfer of energy, but by a series of decompositions and re- 
compositions, there being thus an internal neutralisation of 
the eledtric disturbance, the motive energy which appears at 
one end of the circuit not being that which entered at the 
other end. In the passage of the current through the atmo- 
sphere we have significant indications that the process is the 
same as the above, in the production of ozone as a resultant 
of chemical change. Other indications which point to the 
same conclusion we have just seen to exist in the adtion of 
the galvanic battery and of the thermo-circuit. There is no 
complete eledtric circuit through the battery. Neutralisation 
of the eledtric disturbance takes place between each pair of 
cells, while final neutralisation of the eledtric disturbance 
caused by the terminal cells takes place through the con- 
ducting wires. The same rule holds in the thermo-battery. 
Thus, instead of there being any complete eledtric circuit, 
there is a series of successive neutralisations of the opposite 
eledtric energies between every pair of active nodes in the 
circuit. In the case of the atmospheric and the electrolytic 
