The hydrogen adhering to the other electrode swells into large bubbles,
which rise in much slower succession; but when the current is reversed,
the hydrogen is liberated upon the cleansed wire, and then its bubbles
also become small.

Footnotes to Chapter 5

[1] Buff finds the quantity of electricity associated with one
milligramme of hydrogen in water to be equal to 45,480 charges of a
Leyden jar, with a height of 480 millimetres, and a diameter of 160
millimetres. Weber and Kohlrausch have calculated that, if the
quantity of electricity associated with one milligramme of hydrogen
in water were diffused over a cloud at a height of 1000 metres above
the earth, it would exert upon an equal quantity of the opposite
electricity at the earth's surface an attractive force of 2,268,000
kilogrammes. (Electrolytische Maasbestimmungen, 1856, p. 262.)

[2] Faraday, sa Vie et ses Travaux, p. 20.


Chapter 6.

Laws of electro-chemical decomposition.

In our conceptions and reasonings regarding the forces of nature,
we perpetually make use of symbols which, when they possess a high
representative value, we dignify with the name of theories. Thus,
prompted by certain analogies, we ascribe electrical phenomena to
the action of a peculiar fluid, sometimes flowing, sometimes at
rest. Such conceptions have their advantages and their