V. Experimental researches in electricity.—Sixth series

Abstract

The conclusion at which I have arrived in this section may seem to render the whole of it unfit to form part of a series of researches in electricity; since, remarkable as the phenomena are, the power which produces them is not considered as of an electric origin, otherwise than as all attraction of particles may have this subtil agent for their common cause. But as the effects investigated arose out of electrical researches, as they are directly connected with others which are of an electric nature, and must of necessity be understood and guarded against in a very extensive series of electro-chemical decompositions (707.), I have felt myself fully justified in detailing them in this place. Believing that I had proved (by experiments hereafter to be described (705.),) the constant and definite chemical action of a certain quantity of electricity, whatever its intensity might be, or however the circumstances of its transmission through either the decomposing body or the more perfect conductors were varied, I endeavoured upon that result to construct a new measuring instrument, which from its use might be called, at least provisionally, a Volta-electrometer (739.).