FARADAY, MICHAEL. - ON ELECTRICAL CONDUCTION OF LIQUIDS.

Experimental Researches in Electricity. Fourth Series. § 9. On a new Law of Electric Conduction. § 10. On Conducting Power. (Sections 380-449). Recieved April 24, - Read May 23, 1833.

(London, Richard Taylor, 1833). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Philosophical Transactions" 1833 - Part II. Pp. 507-522. and 1 textillustration. Fine and clean.

First appearance of this importent paper in which Faraday announces his discoveries of the conductability of liquids.

"The author, while prosecuting his rechearches on electr-chemical decomposition, oberved some phenomena which, appeared to be referable to a general law of electric conduction not hitherto recognized. He found that an electric current from a voltaic battery, which is readily conducted by water, did not pass through ice: even the thinnest film of iice, interposed in the circuit, was sufficient to intercept all electrical influence of such low intensities as that produced, by the voltaic apparatus, although it allows of the transmission of electricity of such high intensity that ecited by the common electrical machine. The author ascertained that a great number of other substances, which are solid at ordinary temperatures, do not conduct the electric current from the volataic battery
until they are liquified." (Abstract).

From 1831 to 1852 Michael Faraday published his "Experimental Researches in Electricity" in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. These papers contain not only an impressive series of experimental discoveries, but also a collection of heterodox theoretical concepts on the nature of these phenomena expressed in terms of lines of forces and fields. He published 30 papers in all under this general title.They represents Faraday's most importent work, are classics in both chemistry and physics and are the experimental foundations for Maxwell's electro-magnetic theory of light, using Faraday's concepts of lines of force or tubes of magnetic and electrical forces. His many experiments on the effects of electricity and magnetism presented in these papers lead to the fundamental discoveries of 'induced electricity' (the Farday current), the electronic state of matter, the identity of electricity from different sources, equivalents in electro-chemical decomposition, electrostatic induction, hydro-electricity, diamagnetism, relation of gravity to electricity, atmospheric magnetism and many other.

"Among experimental philosophers Faraday holds by universal consent the foremost place. The memoirs in which his discoveries are enshrined will never ceaseto be read with admiration and delight; and future generations will preserve with an affection not less enduring the personal records and familiar letters, which recall the memory of his humble and unselfish spirit."(Edmund Whittaker in 'A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity' p. 197.

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