Page:Experimental researches in electricity.djvu/126

100 359. Extraneous bodies, which, acting as nuclei in crystallising or depositing solutions, cause deposition of substances on them, when it does not occur elsewhere in the liquid, seem to produce their effects by a power of the same kind, i.e. a power of attraction extending to neighbouring particles, and causing them to become attached to the nuclei, although it is not strong enough to make them combine chemically with their substance.

360. It would appear from many cases of nuclei in solutions, and from the effects of bodies put into atmospheres containing the vapours of water, or camphor, or iodine, etc., as if this attraction were in part elective, partaking in its characters both of the attraction of aggregation and chemical affinity: nor is this inconsistent with, but agreeable to, the idea entertained, that it is the power of particles acting, not upon others with which they can immediately and intimately combine, but upon such as are either more distantly situated with respect to them, or which, from previous condition, physical constitution, or feeble relation, are unable to enter into decided union with them.

361. Then, of all bodies, the gases are those which might be expected to show some mutual action whilst jointly under the attractive influence of the platina or other solid acting substance. Liquids, such as water, alcohol, etc., are in so dense and comparatively incompressible a state, as to favour no expectation that their particles should approach much closer to each other by the attraction of the body to which they adhere, and yet that attraction must (according to its effects) place their particles as near to those of the solid wetted body as they are to each other, and in many cases it is evident that the former attraction is the stronger. But gases and vapours are bodies competent to suffer very great changes in the relative distances of their particles by external agencies; and where they are in immediate contact with the platina, the approximation of the particles to those of the metal may be very great. In the case of the hygrometric bodies referred to (357), it is sufficient to reduce the vapour to the fluid state, frequently from atmospheres so rare that without this influence it would be needful to compress them by mechanical force into a bulk not more than one-tenth or even one-twentieth of their original volume before the vapours would become liquids.

362. Another most important consideration in relation to this action of bodies, and which, as far as I am aware, has not hitherto been noticed, is the condition of elasticity under which the gases are placed against the acting surface. We have but very imperfect notions of the real and intimate conditions of