ELECTRICAL THEORY.—Objections to the theories severally of Franklin,
Dufay, and Ampere, with an effort to explain electrical phenomena
by statical or undulatory polarization—Supposed grounds for a
theory—Proofs of the existence of an enormous quantity of imponderable
matter in metals—Electrical phenomena attributed to stationary
or undulatory polarization—On the perfect similitude between the
polarity communicated to iron filings by a magnetized steel bar
and a galvanized wire—Process by which the ethereo-ponderable
atoms within a galvanic circuit are polarized by the chemical
reaction—Difference between electro-ethereal and ethereo-ponderable
polarization—Competency of a wire to convey a galvanic discharge
is as its sectional area, while statical discharges of frictional
electricity, preferring the surface, are promoted by its extension.
Yet in proportion as such discharges are heavy, the ability of a
wire to convey them and its magnetic energy become more dependent
on its sectional area, and less upon extent of surface—Difference
between frictional electricity and galvanic does not depend on the
one being superior as to quantity, the other as to intensity; but on
the different degrees in which the ethereo-ponderable atoms of the
bodies affected are deranged from their natural state of neutralized
polarity—Of ethereo-ponderable deflagration—Summary. 439
[Illustration: Engraved at J. M. Butlers establishment, 84 Chestnut St.
Philad^a.
_Rob^t Hare M D._
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
GRADUATE OF YALE COLLEGE AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY, ASSOCIATE OF THE
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE AND MEMBER OF VARIOUS LEARNED SOCIETIES.]