Page:Various Forces of Matter.djvu/148

156 other metal, then the action would take place, and it would become covered with copper. Now, is not this most wonderful and beautiful to see? We still have the identical chemical force of the particles of zinc acting, and yet in some strange manner we have power to make that chemical force, or something it produces, travel from one place to another—for we do make the chemical force travel from the zinc to the platinum by this very curious experiment of using the two metals in the same fluid in contact with each other.

Let us now examine these phenomena a little more closely. Here is a drawing (fig. 45) in which I have represented a vessel containing the acid liquid and the slips of zinc and platinum or copper, and I have shown them touching each other outside by means of a wire coming from each of them (for it matters not whether they touch in the fluid or outside—by pieces of metal attached, they still by that communication between them have this power transferred from one to the other). Now, if instead of only using one vessel, as I have shown there, I take another, and another, and put in zinc and platinum, zinc and platinum, zinc and platinum,