80. Within the bodies of animals and vegetables, the electro-ether may be supposed to exist as an atmosphere surrounding the ethereo-ponderable atoms of which their organs are constituted, so as to occupy all the space which is not replete with such atoms. Hence a discharge of frictional electricity may indirectly polarize the whole animal frame, by producing ethereo-ponderable polarization in the constituent atoms of the fibres of the nerves and muscles. Probably this polarization is produced more immediately in the ponderable solids by a discharge from a voltaic series or a wire subjected to electro-or magneto-dynamic induction. In the latter instances the shock is reiterated so rapidly as to appear more enduring, while in the former it is more startling and producible at an infinitely greater distance.
81. Agreeably to Farraday’s researches, (1485 to 1543,) there is reason to suppose that in frictional spark discharges, the consequent shock, light, and other peculiarities are in part owing to waves of ethereo-ponderable polarization, indirectly produced in the intervening gaseous matter.
Of Ethereo-ponderable Deflagration.
82. It is well known that between two pieces of charcoal severally attached, one to the negative, the other to the positive, pole of a numerous and well-excited voltaic series, an arch of flame may be produced by moving them apart after contact. This phenomenon evidently depends upon the volatilization of the ponderable matter concerned; since it cannot be produced before the carbon has been volatilized by contact, nor by any body besides charcoal, this being the only conductor which is sufficiently infusible, and yet duly volatilizable. Metals, similarly treated, fuse at the point of contact and cohere. On separation, after touching, a single spark ensues, which, without repetition of contact, cannot be reproduced. Hence, it may be inferred that the carbonaceous vapour is indispensable to this process, as a medium for the ethereo-ponderable polarizing waves, being soon consumed by the surrounding atmospheric oxygen. The excrescence upon the negative charcoal, observed by Silliman, together with the opposite appearance on the positive charcoal, may be owing to the lesser affinity for oxygen on the negative side.[78]
83. There may be some resemblance imagined between this luminous discharge between the poles, and that which has already been designated as disruptive; but this flaming arch discharge does not break through the air; it only usurps its place gradually, and then sustains this usurpation. It differs from the other as to its cause, so far as galvanic reaction differs from friction; moreover, it requires a volatilizable, as well as a polarizable ponderable conducting substance to enable its appropriate undulations to meet at a mean distance from the solid polar terminations whence they respectively proceed.
84. The most appropriate designation of the phenomenon under consideration is that of ethereo-ponderable undulatory deflagration. Under this head we may not only place the flaming arch, but likewise the active ignition and dissipation of fine wire or leaf metal, or when attached to one pole, and made barely to touch the other.
85. In one of Farraday’s experiments, a circuit was completed by subjecting platina points, severally proceeding from the poles of a voltaic series, while very near to each other, to the flame of a spirit lamp. This was ascribed by him to the rarefaction of the air, but ought, as I think, to be attributed to the polarizable ethereo-ponderable matter of the flame, performing the same office as the volatilized carbon in the flaming arch, between charcoal points, to which reference has been made.
Summary.
From the facts and reasoning which have been above stated, it is presumed that the following deductions may be considered as highly probable, if not altogether susceptible of demonstration: