Page:The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically.pdf/18

 THE GALVANIC CIRCUIT INVESTIGATED

MATHEMATICALLY.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE design of this Memoir is to deduce strictly from a few principles, obtained chiefly by experiment, the rationale of those electrical phenomena which are produced by the mutual contact of two or more bodies, and which have been termed galvanic; its aim is attained if by means of it the variety of facts be presented as unity to the mind. To begin with the most simple investigations, I have confined myself at the outset to those cases where the electricity developed propagates itself in one dimension only.

They form, as it were, a scaffolding to a greater structure, and contain precisely that portion, the more accurate knowledge of which may be gained from the elements

11