Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1

85. A disc of copper, twelve inches in diameter, and about one fifth of an inch in thickness, fixed upon a brass axis, was mounted in frames so as to allow of revolution either...

1178. The preceding considerations already point to the following conclusions: bodies cannot be charged absolutely, but only relatively, and by a principle which is the same wit...

1574. The very varied and beautiful phenomena produced by sheltering or enclosing the point, illustrate the production of the current exceedingly well, and justify the same conc...

192. I hardly dare venture, even in the most hypothetical form, to ask whether the Aurora Borealis and Australia may not be the discharge of electricity, thus urged towards the...

1412. Amongst other results, I expected and sought for the mutual affection, or even the lateral coalition of two similar sparks, if they could be obtained simultaneously side b...

157. On using copper wires one sixth of an inch in thickness instead of the smaller wires (86.) hitherto constantly employed, far more powerful effects were obtained. Perhaps if...

1037. This effect I was ultimately able to refer to the state of the film of fluid in contact with the zinc plate in cell i. The acid of that film is instantly neutralized by th...

1205. As a final observation on the state of the apparatus, they should retain their charges well and uniformly, and alike for both, and at the same time allow of a perfect and...

1126. In these experiments the new trough diminished in its energy much more rapidly than the one on the old construction, and this was a necessary consequence of the smaller qu...

488. This theory implies that decomposition takes place at both poles upon distinct portions of fluid, and not at all in the intervening parts. The latter serve merely as imperf...

1443. When air is said to be electrified, and it frequently assumes this state near electrical machines, it consists, according to my view, of a mixture of electrified and unele...

125. But it is possible (though not necessary for the rotation) that _time_ may be required for the development of the maximum current in the plate, in which case the resultant...

23. This deficiency of effect is not because the induced current of electricity cannot pass fluids, but probably because of its brief duration and feeble intensity; for on intro...

1607. On connecting _b_ with the conductor of a powerful electrical machine, not the least disturbance of the level of the fluid over the end of the wire during the working of t...

545. Many of the metals, however, in their solid state, offer very fair instances of the kind required. Thus, if a plate of platina be used as the positive pole in a solution of...

1544. I will now notice a very remarkable circumstance in the luminous discharge accompanied by negative glow, which may, perhaps, be correctly traced hereafter into discharges...

[A] It will I trust be fully understood, that in these investigations I am not professing to take an account of every small, incidental, or barely possible effect, dependent upo...

1472. When the distinct negative and positive brushes are produced simultaneously in relation to each other in air, the former almost always has a contracted form, as in fig. 12...

232. When an electrical current is passed through a wire, that wire is surrounded at every part by magnetic curves, diminishing in intensity according to their distance from the...

906. A little nitric acid was added to the liquid in the vessel _r_, so as to make a mixture which I shall call diluted nitro-sulphuric acid. On repeating the experiments with t...

575. A mixture of equal volumes of chlorine and hydrogen was used in several experiments, with plates prepared in a similar manner (570.). Diminution of bulk soon took place; bu...

613. Dr. Fusinieri has also written on this subject, and given a theory which he considers as sufficient to account for the phenomena[A]. He expresses the immediate cause thus:...

1665. The transverse power has a character of polarity impressed upon it. In the simplest forms it appears as attraction or repulsion, according as the currents are in the same...

1701. This conclusion is founded on several considerations. Thus if we observe the insulating and conducting power of elements when they are used as dielectrics, we find some, a...

311. I first repeated Wollaston's fourth experiment[A], in which the ends of coated silver wires are immersed in a drop of sulphate of copper. By passing the electricity of the...

640. But when similar experiments were made with _olefiant gas_ (the platina plates having been made the positive poles of a voltaic pile (570.) in acid), very different results...

1236. This effect was at once distinguished from that produced by the excited stem acting in curved lines of induction (1203. 1232.), by the circumstance that all the returned e...

849. It is _probable_ that all our present elementary bodies are _ions_, but that is not as yet certain. There are some, such as carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, silicon, boron, al...

376. Hence it results that both in _magnetic deflection_ (371.) and in _chemical force_, the current of electricity of the standard voltaic battery for eight beats of the watch...

1634. Hence, the section of a current compared with other sections of the same current must be a constant quantity, if the actions exerted be of the same kind; or if of differen...

1005. The superiority of the amalgamated zinc is not, however, due to any such cause, but is a very simple consequence of the state of the fluid in contact with it; for as the u...

1152. Again, ten pairs of my four-inch plates (1129.) lost 6.76 each, or the whole ten 67.6 equivalents of zinc, in effecting decomposition; whilst twenty pairs of the same plat...

59. The only difference which powerfully strikes the attention as existing between volta-electric and magneto-electric induction, is the suddenness of the former, and the sensib...

456. Experiments were then made both with sulphate of soda and iodide of potassium, to ascertain if any diminution of decomposing effect was produced by such great extension as...

709. The third form of apparatus contains both electrodes in the same tube; the transmission, therefore, of the electricity, and the consequent decomposition, is far more rapid...

1071. No change takes place in the quantity or intensity of the current during the time the latter is _continued_, from the moment after contact is made, up to that previous to...

413. In almost all the instances, as yet observed, which are governed by this law, the substances experimented with have been those which were not only compound bodies, but such...

266. Notwithstanding, therefore, the general impression of the identity of electricities, it is evident that the proofs have not been sufficiently clear and distinct to obtain t...

1350. As an illustration of the condition of the polarized particles in a dielectric under induction, I may describe an experiment. Put into a glass vessel some clear rectified...

980. A further proof of decomposition was obtained in the following manner. The platina wires in the fused chloride at _a_ were brought very near together (metallic contact havi...

1264. The shell-lac was then removed from app. i. and put into app. ii. and the experiments of division again made. I give the results, because I think the importance of the poi...

958. There are a few circumstances connected with the production of this spark by a single pair of plates, which should be known, to ensure success to the experiment[B]. When th...

1296. But with regard to the _dielectrics_ or insulating media, matters are very different (1167.). Their thickness has an immediate and important influence on the degree of ind...

517. _Judging from facts only_, there is not as yet the slightest reason for considering the influence which is present in what we call the electric current,--whether in metals...

Acetate of soda fused and anhydrous is directly decomposed, being, as I believe, a true electrolyte, and evolving soda and acetic acid at the _cathode_ and _anode_. These howeve...

1100. Thus all the phenomena tend to prove that the effects are due to an inductive action, occurring at the moment when the principal current is stopped. I at one time thought...

744. These secondary results occur in two ways, being sometimes due to the mutual action of the evolved substance and the matter of the electrode, and sometimes to its action up...

873. But admitting that chemical action is the source of electricity, what an infinitely small fraction of that which is active do we obtain and employ in our voltaic batteries!...

1380. I have no need to remark upon the discharging or collecting power of flame or hot air. I believe, with Harris, that the mere heat does nothing (1367.), the rarefaction onl...

[Since this paper was read, I have changed some of the terms which were first proposed, that I might employ only such as were at the same time simple in their nature, clear in t...

344. _In motion_: i. _Evolution of Heat._--The current produced by magneto-electric induction can heat a wire in the manner of ordinary electricity. At the British Association o...

1327. That in our attempts to penetrate into the nature of electrical action, and to deduce laws more general than those we are at present acquainted with, we should endeavour t...

Another apparatus was occasionally used in connection with that just described, being an open discharger (fig. 132.), by which a comparison of the discharge in air and that in g...

809. Immediately that the circuit was complete, the _electro-chemical action_ commenced in all the vessels. The hydrogen still rose in, apparently, undiminished quantities from...

E-text prepared by Paul Murray, Richard Prairie, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationa...

Nascent state, its relation to combination, 658, 717. _Natural_ standard of direction for current, 663. ---- relation of electrolytic intensity, 987. _Nature of the electric_ cu...

1734. It may be said that the state of _no lateral action_ is to static or inductive force the equivalent of _magnetism_ to current force; but that can only be upon the view tha...

Earth, natural magneto-electric induction in, 181, 190, 192. _Elasticity of_ gases, 626. ---- gaseous particles, 658. _Electric_ brush, 1425. _See_ Brush, electric. ---- conditi...

_Capacity, specific inductive_, 1252. ----. _See_ Specific inductive capacity. _Carbonic acid gas_ facilitates formation of spark, 1463. ----, brush in, 1461, 1476. ----, glow i...