lode which was to him a rod of divination. 'Er riecht die Wahrheit,'
said the lamented Kohlrausch, an eminent German, once in my hearing:--
'He smells the truth.' His eyes are now steadily fixed on this
wonderful voltaic current, and he must learn more of its mode of
transmission.

On May 23, 1833, he read a paper before the Royal Society 'On a new
Law of Electric Conduction.' He found that, though the current
passed through water, it did not pass through ice:--why not, since
they are one and the same substance? Some years subsequently he
answered this question by saying that the liquid condition enables
the molecule of water to turn round so as to place itself in the
proper line of polarization, while the rigidity of the solid
condition prevents this arrangement. This polar arrangement must
precede decomposition, and decomposition is an accompaniment of
conduction. He then passed on to other substances; to oxides and
chlorides, and iodides, and salts, and sulphurets, and found them
all insulators when solid, and conductors when fused. In all cases,
moreover, except one--and this exception he thought might be
apparent only--he found the passage of the current across the fused
compound to be accompanied by its decomposition. Is then the act of
decomposition essential to the act of conduction in these bodies?
Even recently this question was warmly contested. Faraday was very
cautious latterly in expressing himself upon this subject; but as a
matter of fact he held that an infinitesimal quantity of electricity
might pass through a compound liquid without producing its
decomposition. De la Rive, who has been a great worker on the
chemical phenomena of the pile, is very emphatic on the other side.
Experiment, according to him and others, establishes in the most
conclusive manner that no trace of electricity can pass through a