814. Positive isolation only is evolved opposite to sulphur, in zinc, probably because this belongs to the air-metals.
815. What sulphur is in its series, that is zinc in the metallic series; the isolating electric rod, with which the other bodies are associated; the one the positive, the other the negative isolator; in so far forsooth as one can isolate bodies that have arisen through linear action. With zinc the other metals become negative, because it can be nothing else than positive, as sulphur can be none other than negative. (That this does not hold good absolutely, we need scarcely be reminded).
816. Two fixations of electricity thus exist, and from these the electric phenomena must be derived. So long as we imagine that electrical proportions run in a continuous line, so long shall we never be able to avoid contradictions. Two rods stand firmly, and from out and around these two heaps of bodies form, which in reference to their electrical relation (according to the experiments hitherto performed) are naturally exhibited as only one series.
817. Sulphur does not stand alone, but is associated with a series, especially of the higher Inflammables, bitumens or mineral-resins, ætherial oils and hydrogen gas. The higher the inflammability ascends, by so much the more energetic is the negative character, so that, finally, the sulphur itself becomes positive towards such matters.
818. If in every polar action it can be proved, that each polar line consists of infinitely numerous poles, and that each point in it can be alternately changing both polarities, in accordance with the mutation of the principal poles that exert their influence; so is it in electricity. There is scarcely a single body which cannot be positive as well as negative, if it only becomes displaced in its own series, or is transported into the other.
b. COAL.
819. During the electrical separation of the Basic of the earth, or during the communication of the aerial character to the Earthy, a body remains behind with positive character, or the Coal.
820. Coal may be regarded as volatilized metal, as a metal which can change by the action of water or acid upon it into air. Black-lead is a coal, which is directly associated with the metals.
821. Coal appears therefore less in particular places, than as expanded into entire rocky masses, as e. g. in the clay-slate and as carbonic-acid in lime.
822. The coal was, during the earth-formation, separated from the sea, yet not, or only rarely, by itself, but along with other masses of earth, while the sulphur rather accompanies the metals. Coal passes over into the earths, the sulphur into the metals.