Faraday as a Discoverer Part 2

The mere approach of a wire forming a closed curve to a second wire through which a voltaic current flowed was then shown by Faraday to be sufficient to arouse in the neutral wire an induced current, opposed in direction to the inducing current; the withdrawal of the wire also generated a current having the same direction as the inducing current; those currents existed only during the time of approach or withdrawal, and when neither the primary nor the secondary wire was in motion, no matter how close their proximity might be, no induced current was generated.

Faraday has been called a purely inductive philosopher. A great deal of nonsense is, I fear, uttered in this land of England about induction and deduction. Some profess to befriend the one, some the other, while the real vocation of an investigator, like Faraday, consists in the incessant marriage of both. He was at this time full of the theory of Ampere, and it cannot be doubted that numbers of his experiments were executed merely to test his deductions from that theory. Starting from the discovery of Oersted, the ill.u.s.trious French philosopher had shown that all the phenomena of magnetism then known might be reduced to the mutual attractions and repulsions of electric currents. Magnetism had been produced from electricity, and Faraday, who all his life long entertained a strong belief in such reciprocal actions, now attempted to effect the evolution of electricity from magnetism. Round a welded iron ring he placed two distinct coils of covered wire, causing the coils to occupy opposite halves of the ring. Connecting the ends of one of the coils with a galvanometer, he found that the moment the ring was magnetised, by sending a current through the other coil, the galvanometer needle whirled round four or five times in succession. The action, as before, was that of a pulse, which vanished immediately.

On interrupting the circuit, a whirl of the needle in the opposite direction occurred. It was only during the time of magnetization or demagnetization that these effects were produced. The induced currents declared a change of condition only, and they vanished the moment the act of magnetization or demagnetization was complete.

The effects obtained with the welded ring were also obtained with straight bars of iron. Whether the bars were magnetised by the electric current, or were excited by the contact of permanent steel magnets, induced currents were always generated during the rise, and during the subsidence of the magnetism. The use of iron was then abandoned, and the same effects were obtained by merely thrusting a permanent steel magnet into a coil of wire. A rush of electricity through the coil accompanied the insertion of the magnet; an equal rush in the opposite direction accompanied its withdrawal. The precision with which Faraday describes these results, and the completeness with which he defines the boundaries of his facts, are wonderful. The magnet, for example, must not be pa.s.sed quite through the coil, but only half through; for if pa.s.sed wholly through, the needle is stopped as by a blow, and then he shows how this blow results from a reversal of the electric wave in the helix. He next operated with the powerful permanent magnet of the Royal Society, and obtained with it, in an exalted degree, all the foregoing phenomena.

And now he turned the light of these discoveries upon the darkest physical phenomenon of that day. Arago had discovered, in 1824, that a disk of non-magnetic metal had the power of bringing a vibrating magnetic needle suspended over it rapidly to rest; and that on causing the disk to rotate the magnetic needle rotated along with it. When both were quiescent, there was not the slightest measurable attraction or repulsion exerted between the needle and the disk; still when in motion the disk was competent to drag after it, not only a light needle, but a heavy magnet. The question had been probed and investigated with admirable skill both by Arago and Ampere, and Poisson had published a theoretic memoir on the subject; but no cause could be a.s.signed for so extraordinary an action. It had also been examined in this country by two celebrated men, Mr. Babbage and Sir John Herschel; but it still remained a mystery. Faraday always recommended the suspension of judgment in cases of doubt. 'I have always admired,' he says, 'the prudence and philosophical reserve shown by M. Arago in resisting the temptation to give a theory of the effect he had discovered, so long as he could not devise one which was perfect in its application, and in refusing to a.s.sent to the imperfect theories of others.' Now, however, the time for theory had come. Faraday saw mentally the rotating disk, under the operation of the magnet, flooded with his induced currents, and from the known laws of interaction between currents and magnets he hoped to deduce the motion observed by Arago. That hope he realised, showing by actual experiment that when his disk rotated currents pa.s.sed through it, their position and direction being such as must, in accordance with the established laws of electro-magnetic action, produce the observed rotation.

Introducing the edge of his disk between the poles of the large horseshoe magnet of the Royal Society, and connecting the axis and the edge of the disk, each by a wire with a galvanometer, he obtained, when the disk was turned round, a constant flow of electricity. The direction of the current was determined by the direction of the motion, the current being reversed when the rotation was reversed. He now states the law which rules the production of currents in both disks and wires, and in so doing uses, for the first time, a phrase which has since become famous. When iron filings are scattered over a magnet, the particles of iron arrange themselves in certain determinate lines called magnetic curves. In 1831, Faraday for the first time called these curves 'lines of magnetic force'; and he showed that to produce induced currents neither approach to nor withdrawal from a magnetic source, or centre, or pole, was essential, but that it was only necessary to cut appropriately the lines of magnetic force. Faraday's first paper on Magneto-electric Induction, which I have here endeavoured to condense, was read before the Royal Society on the 24th of November, 1831.

On January 12, 1832, he communicated to the Royal Society a second paper on Terrestrial Magneto-electric Induction, which was chosen as the Bakerian Lecture for the year. He placed a bar of iron in a coil of wire, and lifting the bar into the direction of the dipping needle, he excited by this action a current in the coil. On reversing the bar, a current in the opposite direction rushed through the wire. The same effect was produced when, on holding the helix in the line of dip, a bar of iron was thrust into it. Here, however, the earth acted on the coil through the intermediation of the bar of iron. He abandoned the bar and simply set a copper plate spinning in a horizontal plane; he knew that the earth's lines of magnetic force then crossed the plate at an angle of about 70degrees. When the plate spun round, the lines of force were intersected and induced currents generated, which produced their proper effect when carried from the plate to the galvanometer. 'When the plate was in the magnetic meridian, or in any other plane coinciding with the magnetic dip, then its rotation produced no effect upon the galvanometer.'

At the suggestion of a mind fruitful in suggestions of a profound and philosophic character--I mean that of Sir John Herschel--Mr. Barlow, of Woolwich, had experimented with a rotating iron sh.e.l.l. Mr. Christie had also performed an elaborate series of experiments on a rotating iron disk. Both of them had found that when in rotation the body exercised a peculiar action upon the magnetic needle, deflecting it in a manner which was not observed during quiescence; but neither of them was aware at the time of the agent which produced this extraordinary deflection.

They ascribed it to some change in the magnetism of the iron sh.e.l.l and disk.

But Faraday at once saw that his induced currents must come into play here, and he immediately obtained them from an iron disk. With a hollow bra.s.s ball, moreover, he produced the effects obtained by Mr. Barlow.

Iron was in no way necessary: the only condition of success was that the rotating body should be of a character to admit of the formation of currents in its substance: it must, in other words, be a conductor of electricity. The higher the conducting power the more copious were the currents. He now pa.s.ses from his little bra.s.s globe to the globe of the earth. He plays like a magician with the earth's magnetism. He sees the invisible lines along which its magnetic action is exerted, and sweeping his wand across these lines evokes this new power. Placing a simple loop of wire round a magnetic needle he bends its upper portion to the west: the north pole of the needle immediately swerves to the east: he bends his loop to the east, and the north pole moves to the west. Suspending a common bar magnet in a vertical position, he causes it to spin round its own axis. Its pole being connected with one end of a galvanometer wire, and its equator with the other end, electricity rushes round the galvanometer from the rotating magnet. He remarks upon the 'singular independence' of the magnetism and the body of the magnet which carries it. The steel behaves as if it were isolated from its own magnetism.

And then his thoughts suddenly widen, and he asks himself whether the rotating earth does not generate induced currents as it turns round its axis from west to east. In his experiment with the twirling magnet the galvanometer wire remained at rest; one portion of the circuit was in motion relatively to another portion. But in the case of the twirling planet the galvanometer wire would necessarily be carried along with the earth; there would be no relative motion. What must be the consequence?

Take the case of a telegraph wire with its two terminal plates dipped into the earth, and suppose the wire to lie in the magnetic meridian.

The ground underneath the wire is influenced like the wire itself by the earth's rotation; if a current from south to north be generated in the wire, a similar current from south to north would be generated in the earth under the wire; these currents would run against the same terminal plate, and thus neutralise each other.

This inference appears inevitable, but his profound vision perceived its possible invalidity. He saw that it was at least possible that the difference of conducting power between the earth and the wire might give one an advantage over the other, and that thus a residual or differential current might be obtained. He combined wires of different materials, and caused them to act in opposition to each other, but found the combination ineffectual. The more copious flow in the better conductor was exactly counterbalanced by the resistance of the worse.

Still, though experiment was thus emphatic, he would clear his mind of all discomfort by operating on the earth itself. He went to the round lake near Kensington Palace, and stretched 480 feet of copper wire, north and south, over the lake, causing plates soldered to the wire at its ends to dip into the water. The copper wire was severed at the middle, and the severed ends connected with a galvanometer. No effect whatever was observed. But though quiescent water gave no effect, moving water might. He therefore worked at London Bridge for three days during the ebb and flow of the tide, but without any satisfactory result. Still he urges, 'Theoretically it seems a necessary consequence, that where water is flowing there electric currents should be formed. If a line be imagined pa.s.sing from Dover to Calais through the sea, and returning through the land, beneath the water, to Dover, it traces out a circuit of conducting matter one part of which, when the water moves up or down the channel, is cutting the magnetic curves of the earth, whilst the other is relatively at rest.... There is every reason to believe that currents do run in the general direction of the circuit described, either one way or the other, according as the pa.s.sage of the waters is up or down the channel.' This was written before the submarine cable was thought of, and he once informed me that actual observation upon that cable had been found to be in accordance with his theoretic deduction.[1]

Three years subsequent to the publication of these researches--that is to say, on January 29, 1835--Faraday read before the Royal Society a paper 'On the influence by induction of an electric current upon itself.' A shock and spark of a peculiar character had been observed by a young man named William Jenkin, who must have been a youth of some scientific promise, but who, as Faraday once informed me, was dissuaded by his own father from having anything to do with science. The investigation of the fact noticed by Mr. Jenkin led Faraday to the discovery of the extra current, or the current induced in the primary wire itself at the moments of making and breaking contact, the phenomena of which he described and ill.u.s.trated in the beautiful and exhaustive paper referred to.

Seven-and-thirty years have pa.s.sed since the discovery of magneto-electricity; but, if we except the extra current, until quite recently nothing of moment was added to the subject. Faraday entertained the opinion that the discoverer of a great law or principle had a right to the 'spoils'--this was his term--arising from its ill.u.s.tration; and guided by the principle he had discovered, his wonderful mind, aided by his wonderful ten fingers, overran in a single autumn this vast domain, and hardly left behind him the shred of a fact to be gathered by his successors.

And here the question may arise in some minds, What is the use of it all? The answer is, that if man's intellectual nature thirsts for knowledge, then knowledge is useful because it satisfies this thirst. If you demand practical ends, you must, I think, expand your definition of the term practical, and make it include all that elevates and enlightens the intellect, as well as all that ministers to the bodily health and comfort of men. Still, if needed, an answer of another kind might be given to the question 'What is its use?' As far as electricity has been applied for medical purposes, it has been almost exclusively Faraday's electricity. You have noticed those lines of wire which cross the streets of London. It is Faraday's currents that speed from place to place through these wires. Approaching the point of Dungeness, the mariner sees an unusually brilliant light, and from the n.o.ble phares of La Heve the same light flashes across the sea. These are Faraday's sparks exalted by suitable machinery to sunlike splendour. At the present moment the Board of Trade and the Brethren of the Trinity House, as well as the Commissioners of Northern Lights, are contemplating the introduction of the Magneto-electric Light at numerous points upon our coasts; and future generations will be able to refer to those guiding stars in answer to the question. What has been the practical use of the labours of Faraday? But I would again emphatically say, that his work needs no such justification, and that if he had allowed his vision to be disturbed by considerations regarding the practical use of his discoveries, those discoveries would never have been made by him. 'I have rather,' he writes in 1831, 'been desirous of discovering new facts and new relations dependent on magneto-electric induction, than of exalting the force of those already obtained; being a.s.sured that the latter would find their full development hereafter.'

In 1817, when lecturing before a private society in London on the element chlorine, Faraday thus expressed himself with reference to this question of utility. 'Before leaving this subject, I will point out the history of this substance, as an answer to those who are in the habit of saying to every new fact. "What is its use?" Dr. Franklin says to such, "What is the use of an infant?" The answer of the experimentalist is, "Endeavour to make it useful." When Scheele discovered this substance, it appeared to have no use; it was in its infancy and useless state, but having grown up to maturity, witness its powers, and see what endeavours to make it useful have done.'

Footnote to Chapter 3

[1] I am indebted to a friend for the following exquisite morsel:--'A short time after the publication of Faraday's first researches in magneto-electricity, he attended the meeting of the British a.s.sociation at Oxford, in 1832. On this occasion he was requested by some of the authorities to repeat the celebrated experiment of eliciting a spark from a magnet, employing for this purpose the large magnet in the Ashmolean Museum. To this he consented, and a large party a.s.sembled to witness the experiments, which, I need not say, were perfectly successful. Whilst he was repeating them a dignitary of the University entered the room, and addressing himself to Professor Daniell, who was standing near Faraday, inquired what was going on. The Professor explained to him as popularly as possible this striking result of Faraday's great discovery. The Dean listened with attention and looked earnestly at the brilliant spark, but a moment after he a.s.sumed a serious countenance and shook his head; "I am sorry for it," said he, as he walked away; in the middle of the room he stopped for a moment and repeated, "I am sorry for it:" then walking towards the door, when the handle was in his hand he turned round and said, "Indeed I am sorry for it; it is putting new arms into the hands of the incendiary." This occurred a short time after the papers had been filled with the doings of the hayrick burners. An erroneous statement of what fell from the Dean's mouth was printed at the time in one of the Oxford papers. He is there wrongly stated to have said, "It is putting new arms into the hands of the infidel."'

Chapter 4.

Points of Character.

A point highly ill.u.s.trative of the character of Faraday now comes into view. He gave an account of his discovery of Magneto-electricity in a letter to his friend M. Hachette, of Paris, who communicated the letter to the Academy of Sciences. The letter was translated and published; and immediately afterwards two distinguished Italian philosophers took up the subject, made numerous experiments, and published their results before the complete memoirs of Faraday had met the public eye. This evidently irritated him. He reprinted the paper of the learned Italians in the 'Philosophical Magazine,' accompanied by sharp critical notes from himself. He also wrote a letter dated Dec. 1, 1832, to Gay Lussac, who was then one of the editors of the 'Annales de Chimie,' in which he a.n.a.lysed the results of the Italian philosophers, pointing out their errors, and defending himself from what he regarded as imputations on his character. The style of this letter is unexceptionable, for Faraday could not write otherwise than as a gentleman; but the letter shows that had he willed it he could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's gentleness and sweetness and tenderness. It is all true, but it is very incomplete. You cannot resolve a powerful nature into these elements, and Faraday's character would have been less admirable than it was had it not embraced forces and tendencies to which the silky adjectives 'gentle' and 'tender' would by no means apply. Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. He was a man of excitable and fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless pa.s.sion. 'He that is slow to anger,' saith the sage, 'is greater than the mighty, and he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city.' Faraday was not slow to anger, but he completely ruled his own spirit, and thus, though he took no cities, he captivated all hearts.

As already intimated, Faraday had contributed many of his minor papers--including his first a.n.a.lysis of caustic lime--to the 'Quarterly Journal of Science.' In 1832, he collected those papers and others together in a small octavo volume, labelled them, and prefaced them thus:--

'PAPERS, NOTES, NOTICES, &c., &c.,published in octavo, up to 1832. M.

Faraday.'

'Papers of mine, published in octavo, in the "Quarterly Journal of Science," and elsewhere, since the time that Sir H. Davy encouraged me to write the a.n.a.lysis of caustic lime.

'Some, I think (at this date), are good; others moderate; and some bad.

But I have put all into the volume, because of the utility they have been of to me--and none more than the bad--in pointing out to me in future, or rather, after times, the faults it became me to watch and to avoid.

'As I never looked over one of my papers a year after it was written without believing both in philosophy and manner it could have been much better done, I still hope the collection may be of great use to me.

'M. Faraday.

'Aug. 18, 1832.'

'None more than the bad!' This is a bit of Faraday's innermost nature; and as I read these words I am almost constrained to retract what I have said regarding the fire and excitability of his character. But is he not all the more admirable, through his ability to tone down and subdue that fire and that excitability, so as to render himself able to write thus as a little child? I once took the liberty of censuring the conclusion of a letter of his to the Dean of St. Paul's. He subscribed himself 'humbly yours,' and I objected to the adverb. 'Well, but, Tyndall,' he said, 'I am humble; and still it would be a great mistake to think that I am not also proud.' This duality ran through his character. A democrat in his defiance of all authority which unfairly limited his freedom of thought, and still ready to stoop in reverence to all that was really worthy of reverence, in the customs of the world or the characters of men.

And here, as well as elsewhere, may be introduced a letter which bears upon this question of self-control, written long years subsequent to the period at which we have now arrived. I had been at Glasgow in 1855, at a meeting of the British a.s.sociation. On a certain day, I communicated a paper to the physical section, which was followed by a brisk discussion.

Men of great distinction took part in it, the late Dr. Whewell among the number, and it waxed warm on both sides. I was by no means content with this discussion; and least of all, with my own part in it. This discontent affected me for some days, during which I wrote to Faraday, giving him no details, but expressing, in a general way, my dissatisfaction. I give the following extract from his reply:--

'Sydenham, Oct. 6, 1855.

'My Dear Tyndall,--These great meetings, of which I think very well altogether, advance science chiefly by bringing scientific men together and making them to know and be friends with each other; and I am sorry when that is not the effect in every part of their course. I know nothing except from what you tell me, for I have not yet looked at the reports of the proceedings; but let me, as an old man, who ought by this time to have profited by experience, say that when I was younger I found I often misinterpreted the intentions of people, and found they did not mean what at the time I supposed they meant; and, further, that as a general rule, it was better to be a little dull of apprehension where phrases seemed to imply pique, and quick in perception when, on the contrary, they seemed to imply kindly feeling. The real truth never fails ultimately to appear; and opposing parties, if wrong, are sooner convinced when replied to forbearingly, than when overwhelmed. All I mean to say is, that it is better to be blind to the results of partisanship, and quick to see good will. One has more happiness in oneself in endeavouring to follow the things that make for peace. You can hardly imagine how often I have been heated in private when opposed, as I have thought, unjustly and superciliously, and yet I have striven, and succeeded, I hope, in keeping down replies of the like kind. And I know I have never lost by it. I would not say all this to you did I not esteem you as a true philosopher and friend.[1]

'Yours, very truly,

'M. Faraday.'

Footnote to Chapter 4

[1] Faraday would have been rejoiced to learn that, during its last meeting at Dundee, the British a.s.sociation ill.u.s.trated in a striking manner the function which he here describes as its princ.i.p.al one. In my own case, a brotherly welcome was everywhere manifested. In fact, the differences of really honourable and sane men are never beyond healing.

Chapter 5.

Ident.i.ty of electricities; first researches on electro-chemistry.

I have already once used the word 'discomfort' in reference to the occasional state of Faraday's mind when experimenting. It was to him a discomfort to reason upon data which admitted of doubt. He hated what he called 'doubtful knowledge,' and ever tended either to transfer it into the region of undoubtful knowledge, or of certain and definite ignorance. Pretence of all kinds, whether in life or in philosophy, was hateful to him. He wished to know the reality of our nescience as well as of our science. 'Be one thing or the other,' he seemed to say to an unproved hypothesis; 'come out as a solid truth, or disappear as a convicted lie.' After making the great discovery which I have attempted to describe, a doubt seemed to beset him as regards the ident.i.ty of electricities. 'Is it right,' he seemed to ask, 'to call this agency which I have discovered electricity at all? Are there perfectly conclusive grounds for believing that the electricity of the machine, the pile, the gymnotus and torpedo, magneto-electricity and thermo-electricity, are merely different manifestations of one and the same agent?' To answer this question to his own satisfaction he formally reviewed the knowledge of that day. He added to it new experiments of his own, and finally decided in favour of the 'Ident.i.ty of Electricities.' His paper upon this subject was read before the Royal Society on January 10 and 17, 1833.

After he had proved to his own satisfaction the ident.i.ty of electricities, he tried to compare them quant.i.tatively together. The terms quant.i.ty and intensity, which Faraday constantly used, need a word of explanation here. He might charge a single Leyden jar by twenty turns of his machine, or he might charge a battery of ten jars by the same number of turns. The quant.i.ty in both cases would be sensibly the same, but the intensity of the single jar would be the greatest, for here the electricity would be less diffused. Faraday first satisfied himself that the needle of his galvanometer was caused to swing through the same arc by the same quant.i.ty of machine electricity, whether it was condensed in a small battery or diffused over a large one. Thus the electricity developed by thirty turns of his machine produced, under very variable conditions of battery surface, the same deflection. Hence he inferred the possibility of comparing, as regards quant.i.ty, electricities which differ greatly from each other in intensity. His object now is to compare frictional with voltaic electricity. Moistening bibulous paper with the iodide of pota.s.sium--a favourite test of his--and subjecting it to the action of machine electricity, he decomposed the iodide, and formed a brown spot where the iodine was liberated. Then he immersed two wires, one of zinc, the other of platinum, each 1/13th of an inch in diameter, to a depth of 5/8ths of an inch in acidulated water during eight beats of his watch, or 3/20ths of a second; and found that the needle of his galvanometer swung through the same arc, and coloured his moistened paper to the same extent, as thirty turns of his large electrical machine. Twenty-eight turns of the machine produced an effect distinctly less than that produced by his two wires. Now, the quant.i.ty of water decomposed by the wires in this experiment totally eluded observation; it was immeasurably small; and still that amount of decomposition involved the development of a quant.i.ty of electric force which, if applied in a proper form, would kill a rat, and no man would like to bear it.

In his subsequent researches 'On the absolute Quant.i.ty of Electricity a.s.sociated with the Particles or Atoms of matter,' he endeavours to give an idea of the amount of electrical force involved in the decomposition of a single grain of water. He is almost afraid to mention it, for he estimates it at 800,000 discharges of his large Leyden battery. This, if concentrated in a single discharge, would be equal to a very great flash of lightning; while the chemical action of a single grain of water on four grains of zinc would yield electricity equal in quant.i.ty to a powerful thunderstorm. Thus his mind rises from the minute to the vast, expanding involuntarily from the smallest laboratory fact till it embraces the largest and grandest natural phenomena.[1]

In reality, however, he is at this time only clearing his way, and he continues laboriously to clear it for some time afterwards. He is digging the shaft, guided by that instinct towards the mineral lode which was to him a rod of divination. 'Er riecht die Wahrheit,' said the lamented Kohlrausch, an eminent German, once in my hearing:--'He smells the truth.' His eyes are now steadily fixed on this wonderful voltaic current, and he must learn more of its mode of transmission.

On May 23, 1833, he read a paper before the Royal Society 'On a new Law of Electric Conduction.' He found that, though the current pa.s.sed through water, it did not pa.s.s through ice:--why not, since they are one and the same substance? Some years subsequently he answered this question by saying that the liquid condition enables the molecule of water to turn round so as to place itself in the proper line of polarization, while the rigidity of the solid condition prevents this arrangement. This polar arrangement must precede decomposition, and decomposition is an accompaniment of conduction. He then pa.s.sed on to other substances; to oxides and chlorides, and iodides, and salts, and sulphurets, and found them all insulators when solid, and conductors when fused. In all cases, moreover, except one--and this exception he thought might be apparent only--he found the pa.s.sage of the current across the fused compound to be accompanied by its decomposition. Is then the act of decomposition essential to the act of conduction in these bodies? Even recently this question was warmly contested. Faraday was very cautious latterly in expressing himself upon this subject; but as a matter of fact he held that an infinitesimal quant.i.ty of electricity might pa.s.s through a compound liquid without producing its decomposition. De la Rive, who has been a great worker on the chemical phenomena of the pile, is very emphatic on the other side. Experiment, according to him and others, establishes in the most conclusive manner that no trace of electricity can pa.s.s through a liquid compound without producing its equivalent decomposition.[2]

Faraday has now got fairly entangled amid the chemical phenomena of the pile, and here his previous training under Davy must have been of the most important service to him. Why, he asks, should decomposition thus take place?--what force is it that wrenches the locked const.i.tuents of these compounds asunder? On the 20th of June, 1833, he read a paper before the Royal Society 'On Electro-chemical Decomposition,' in which he seeks to answer these questions. The notion had been entertained that the poles, as they are called, of the decomposing cell, or in other words the surfaces by which the current enters and quits the liquid, exercised electric attractions upon the const.i.tuents of the liquid and tore them asunder. Faraday combats this notion with extreme vigour.