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

APPENDIX. 44730. A (juicscent charge of frictional electricity, only affecting; thesuperficies of any ponderable mass with whicii it may be associated, andhaving no influence upon the component cthcreo-ponderablc atoms severally,is not to be ascribed to redundancies or deficiencies of the etherealmatter, but to dillerent states of polarization produced in different sets ofthe particles of such matter existing about the electrifiablc bodies.* Duringthe action of an electrical machine, these particles arc polarized by theopposite polarities transiently induced in the surfaces subjected to friction;one set of particles going with the electric, the other remaining with therubber40. The particles thus oppositely polarized, severally divide their appropriatepolarities with other ethereal matter surrounding the conductors, andthis, when insulated, is retained until a further polarization results fromthe same process. Thus are the ctherco-electric atmospheres respectivelysurrounding the positive and negative conductors oppositely polarized, andconsequently charged to the degree which the machine is competent to induce.Under these circumstances, if a conducting rod be made to formbetween them a communication, by touching each conductor with one of itsends, the polarities of the ethereo-electric atmospheres by which they areseverally surrounded propagate themselves, by a wave-like process, overand more or less through the rod, according to its nature and dimensions,so as to meet intermediately, and thus produce reciprocal neutralization.41. When the oppositely polarizing waves, generated by friction, asabove described, are by means of a conducting communication transmittedto the surface of a coated pane, the two different portions of the electroetherthere existing arc severally polarized in opposite ways, one beingendowed with the properties usually called vitreous, or positive, the otherwith those usually called resinous, or negative. In fact, the two polarizedatmospheres thus created, may be conveniently designated as the " twoelectricities,'' and alluded to in the language heretofore employed in treatingof phenomena, agreeably to the hypothesis which assumes the existenceof heterogeneous fluids instead of heterogeneous polarities.42. Of course it will follow, that the oppositely polarized ethereal atmospheresthus produced, one on each surface of the electric which keepsthem apart, must exercise toward each other an attraction perfectly analogousto that which has been supposed to be exercised by the imaginaryheterogeneous electric fluids of Dufay. The electro-ether"!" being elastic,is so intimately connected." Thus the existence of matter, composed of ethereal as wellas ponderable particles, is sustained by all the evidence Avhich has been brought to upholdthe undulatory theory of light. L. &, E. Phil. Marj.