Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 2 (1841).djvu/509

served, but placed entirely beyond doubt by Pohl's remarkable experiments on the reaction of metals. Besides, we will direct our attention to a difference which exists between the distributioh of electricity above examined, and the molecular movement now under consideration. If, for instance, the same forces, which previously effected the conduction of the electricity, and there, as it were, incorporeally without impediment strove against each other, here enter into conflict with masses, by which their free activity is restricted, a restriction which, whether we regard the electricity de se ipso as something material or not, must render their present velocities, beyond comparison, smaller than the former ones; therefore we cannot in the least expect that the permanent state, which we at present examine, will instantaneously occur like that above noticed, arising from the electric distribution; we have rather to expect that the permanent state resulting from the chemical equivalent of both constituents, will make its appearance only after a perceptible, although longer or shorter time.

After these remarks, we will now proceed to the determination of the separate values $\mathrm {X}$ and $\mathrm {Y}$.

34. To obtain the value $\mathrm {X}$, we have merely to bear in mind that the intensity of coherence is determined by the force with which the two adjacent constituents attract or repel each other by virtue of their electric antagonism, and consequently, as was shown in §30, proportional to the product of the latent electroscopic forces $mz$ and $n(1-z)$ possessed by the constituents of the disc $\mathrm {M}$, and is, moreover, dependent on a function to be deduced from the size, form, and distance, which we will designate by $4\phi$. Accordingly, when we restrict the coherence to the magnitude of the section $\omega$,

$\mathrm {X} =-4\phi mnz(1-z)\omega$.

We have placed the sign ${\frac {\quad }{}}$ before the expression ascertained for the strength of the coherence, since a reciprocal attraction of the constituents only occurs when $m$ and $n$ have opposite signs; when $m$ and $n$ have the same signs, the constituents exert a repulsive action on each other, which no longer prevents, but promotes the decomposing force. After this remark it will at first sight be evident that a positive or negative value must be ascribed to the function $\phi$, according as the expression taken for the decomposing force $z$ is positive or nega-