occasioned a comment from Faraday on the number of suggestions which were continually being laid before him. He remarked that although at different times a large number of authors had presented him with their ideas, this case of Jenkin was the only one in which any result had followed. "The volunteers are serious embarrassments generally to the experienced philosopher."[1]
The discoveries of Oersted, Ampère, and Faraday had shown the close connexion of magnetic with electric science. But the connexion of the different branches of electric science with each other was still not altogether clear. Although Wollaston's experiments of 1801 had in effect proved the identity in kind of the currents derived from frictional and voltaic sources, the question was still regarded as open thirty years afterwards,[2] no satisfactory explanation being forthcoming of the fact that frictional electricity appeared to be a surface-phenomenon, whereas voltaic electricity was conducted within the interior substance of bodies. To this question Faraday now applied himself; and in 1833 he succeeded[3] in showing that every known effect of electricity-physiological, magnetic, luminous, calorific, chemical, and mechanical-may be obtained indifferently either with the electricity which is obtained by friction or with that obtained from a voltaic battery. Henceforth the identity of the two was beyond dispute.
Some misapprehension, however, has existed among later writers as to the conclusions which may be drawn from this identification. What Faraday proved is that the process which goes on in a wire connecting the terminals of a voltaic cell is of the same nature as the process which for a short time goes on in a wire by which a condenser is discharged. He did not prove,
- ↑ Benee Jones's Life of Faraday, ii, p. 45.
- ↑ Cf. John Davy, Phil. Trans., 1832, p. 259; W. Ritchie, ibid., p. 279. Davy suggested that the electrical power, "according to the analogy of the solar ray," might be "not a simple power, but a combination of powers, which may occur variously associated, and produce all the varieties of electricity with which we are acquainted."
- ↑ Exp. Res., Series iii.
