Neither wishes to commit himself to the notion of a
current compounded of two electricities flowing in two opposite
directions: but the time had not come, nor is it yet come, for the
displacement of this provisional fiction by the true mechanical
conception. Still, however indistinct the theoretic notions of
Faraday at this time may be, the facts which are rising before him
and around him are leading him gradually, but surely, to results of
incalculable importance in relation to the philosophy of the voltaic
pile.
He had always some great object of research in view, but in the
pursuit of it he frequently alighted on facts of collateral interest,
to examine which he sometimes turned aside from his direct course.
Thus we find the series of his researches on electrochemical
decomposition interrupted by an inquiry into 'the power of metals
and other solids, to induce the combination of gaseous bodies.' This
inquiry, which was received by the Royal Society on Nov. 30, 1833,
though not so important as those which precede and follow it,
illustrates throughout his strength as an experimenter. The power
of spongy platinum to cause the combination of oxygen and hydrogen
had been discovered by Dobereiner in 1823, and had been applied by
him in the construction of his well-known philosophic lamp. It was
shown subsequently by Dulong and Thenard that even a platinum wire,
when perfectly cleansed, may be raised to incandescence by its
action on a jet of cold hydrogen.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65