Sir Oliver Lodge, who has made direct experiments to
measure this speed, has obtained a figure very approximate to this.
This value is very small compared to that which we shall meet with in
gases.
Another consequence of the laws of Faraday, to which, as early as 1881,
Helmholtz drew attention, may be considered as the starting-point of
certain new doctrines we shall come across later.
Helmholtz says: "If we accept the hypothesis that simple bodies are
composed of atoms, we are obliged to admit that, in the same way,
electricity, whether positive or negative, is composed of elementary
parts which behave like atoms of electricity."
The second law seems, in fact, analogous to the law of multiple
proportions in chemistry, and it shows us that the quantities of
electricity carried vary from the simple to the double or treble,
according as it is a question of a uni-, bi-, or trivalent metal; and
as the chemical law leads up to the conception of the material atom,
so does the electrolytic law suggest the idea of an electric atom.
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