Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

OF MATTER, MIND, AND SPIRIT. 3851877. If to a wire, connecting tlic poles of a galvanic battery, ironfilings arc applied, each ferruginous particle becomes a little magnet, anddisplays exactly the same disposition to unite in filaments as has been representedto take place when they are exposed upon a sheet of paper, tothe influence of a magnet supporting it. But while this affection is thusidentical with that induced by the steel magnet, it differs therefrom, in itsbeing as transient as the galvanic discharges to which it owes its existence.These, at the lowest estimate, are sufficiently rapid to go round the globein two seconds; whence it may be conceived that the time taken to percura few inches of wire must be almost infinitely brief. Hence, althoughthe filings continue in a state of magnetization so long as the action of thebattery is sustained, and the wire kept in due contact with the poles ofthe battery, it is only by a rapid reiteration of discharges, that this resultis effected.1878. As the relative position of the particles composing the steelmagnet has been inferred to be indicated by that of the movable filingswhich they influence, we may suppose the position of the particles composingthe wire, to be indicated by that which the filings take by which it isencircled. These are situated always as if forming tangents to the circumferenceof the wire, and hence it may be perceived that the metallicparticles, forming the wire, have been shifted from their normal position,parallel to the axis, so as to take that tangential direction which the magnetizationevinces,1879. On one end of the wire being in communication with one poleof a voltaic series, on touching the other pole of the series with the otherend of the wire, filaments of the particles previously situated parallel tomay, directly or indirectly, be effected of various substances held in solution by water, aswell as substances liquified by heat. Moreover, when the same wire is made to form themeans of discharge by extending from one terminal plate to the other, it acquires theproperty of attracting iron filings, and, so long as the discharge through it is sustained,will cause the compass needle to arrange itself always at right angles to the wire. Underthese circumstances, according to the Franklinian theory, a current of electricity passesfrom tho positive to the negative pole ; accox'ding to the theory of Dufay, a fluid proceedingfrom each pole, they combine in the wire.According to the view above given, two oppositewaves of polarization pass, by which the metallic atoms or particles are shifted fromtheir natural position, so as to act externally, as already stated.It is not, I believe, known to whom the world is indebted for the fundamental observationin galvanism, made, as has been mentioned, by the assistance of the tongue andplates of silver and zinc. Subsequently, Galvani, probably without any reference to thisphenomenon, ascertained some other consequences of the reaction of the elementary pair;but to Yolta we owe the pile or scries above described. In whatever form voltaic seriesmay have been subsequently constructed, the main princii:)les are the same, the reactionof chemical agents so arranged in succession as to be productive of that intensity of discharge,and powers of decomposition, to which allusion has been made.These have latterly been called electrolytic ; and decomposition, by the voltaic scries, hasbeen called electrolysis, by Farraday—a beautiful, well-conceived, and expressive word.''Sec Essay on Electrical Theory, in the Appendix.)25