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Postscript.—I said that I did not propose to discuss Professor Ward’s own philosophy, and I contented myself with quoting his summary of it—“Nature is Spirit.” It occurs to me, however, that as showing the point of view from which his criticisms are made, it may not be amiss to give readers a rather more specific conception of his philosophy, by reproducing a laudatory quotation he makes. Here it is:—
“If ‘rational synthesis’ of things is what we seek, it is surely more reasonable to say with Lotze: ‘What lies beneath all is not a quantity which is bound eternally to the same limits and compelled through many diverse arrangements, continuously varied, to manifest always the very same total. On the contrary, should the self-realization of the Idea [!] require it, there is nothing to hinder the working elements of the world being at one period more numerous and yet more intense; at another period less intense as well as fewer’” (i., 218). [The italics are mine.]
It is worth remarking that on the opposite page some of my views are characterized as “astounding feats of philosophical jugglery”!
DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF VAGRANT ELECTRICITY.
By HUBERT S. WYNKOOP, M. E.
Reverting to the dictionary for a definition, electrolysis is “the process of decomposing a chemical compound by the passage of an electric current through it.” Electroplating is a popular illustration of this definition, having been numbered among the industrial arts for nearly a century.
If in a bath of sulphate-of-copper solution are placed a copper plate and a plumbago-covered wax mold, the passage of an electric current through the solution, from the plate to the mold, will result in the deposition of copper upon the mold, or negative electrode, and the wasting away of the plate of copper, or positive electrode. Generalizing from this and other experiments, it may be broadly stated that the passage of an electric current through a solution of electrolyzable metallic salt, from an oxidizable metal to some other conductor, will be attended by the separation of the salt into two parts: first, the metal, appearing at the negative electrode; and, second, an unstable compound of the remaining elements. This unstable compound is supposed to unite with the hydrogen of the water, liberating oxygen, and forming an acid. Both oxygen and acid appear only at the positive electrode, which is thus made subject to a double decay—a corrosion by oxygen and a solution by acid.
There is nothing new about this. It is not even a novel statement of a fundamental electro-chemical truth. In times past, however, we were wont to consider this matter as pertaining solely to the laboratory or to the electroplating industry; now we are forced to see that the reproduction of this experiment on a grand scale is attended with results as disagreeable as they are widespread.
Hidden beneath our highways lie gas pipes, water pipes, railway tracks, Edison tubes, cement-lined iron subway ducts, and lead-covered cables. These are the electrodes. In contact with these conductors is the soil, containing an electrolyzable salt—chloride, nitrate or sulphate of ammonia, potash, soda, or magnesia, generally. In the presence of moisture this soil becomes an electrolyte, or salt solution. In the absence of electricity no appreciable damage occurs; but the passage of an electric current, no matter how small, from one pipe to another is sure, sooner or later, to leave its traces upon the positive conductor in the form of a decay other than mere oxidation. It is to this decay that has been given the name of electrolysis; so that when this heading appears in the daily press or in technical journals one may interpret the term popularly as “the electrolytic corrosion of metals buried in the soil.”