5 I 4 
The Source of Electric Energy. 
[September, 
II. THE SOURCE OF ELECTRIC ENERGY. 
By Charles Morris. 
(Concluded from page 468.) 
LECTRICITY, under our hypothesis, is atomic heat. 
The constituents of molecules are affected differently 
by motions, these diverse conditions existing at the 
poles of the molecules, and existing separate from the move- 
ments of the molecules as wholes, precisely as these molecular 
movements exist separately from those of masses as wholes. 
This effedt, as we have argued, results from the influence of 
similarly disturbed molecules or of molecules of different 
tension. If now the positive pole of one molecule vibrates 
to or combines with the negative pole of another, and the 
polarising force ceases, so that they can obey their local 
tendencies, what will result ? The new molecule, being 
unaffected from without, forcibly regains the vibratory pitch 
in accord with its tension. This tendency affedts the special 
atomic vibrations, which are equally above and below the 
normal pitch. They combine to reproduce the intermediate 
pitch, and thus their energy becomes heat vibration of the 
molecule. 
Every molecule, as already stated, resists in some measure 
the polarising influence ; and as the effedt of this influence 
is a new distribution of the motive energies of the molecules, 
these become less and less forcibly disturbed outwardly from 
the battery. The outward pole of each molecule, whether 
it be negative or positive, has an excess of eledtric energy 
over the inward pole of the succeeding molecule. The sum 
of these excess energies must just equal the energy of the 
chemical adtion in the battery cell, ere the current can pass. 
And as it is this excess energy which becomes heat in the 
circuit, it follows that the heat produced is just equal to that 
necessarily arising from the chemical action. As the heat of 
the new-formed molecule is produced by the combination of 
the positive and negative vibrations, this excess of energy 
of one vibration over the other becomes excess heat over that 
possessed by the molecules before indudtion, and in this 
manner the energy of chemical adtion is distributed around 
the circuit. In good condudtors the polarisation is almost 
