247.] If, however, the circuit consist of two metals and an electrolyte, the electrolyte, according to Volta's theory, tends to reduce the potentials of the metals in contact with it to equality, so that the electromotive force at the metallic junction is no longer balanced, and a continuous current is kept up. The energy of this current is supplied by the chemical action which takes place between the electrolyte and the metals.
248.] The electric effect may. however, be produced without chemical action if by any other means we can produce an equalization of the potentials of two metals in contact. Thus, in an experiment due to Sir W. Thomson[1], a copper funnel is placed in contact with a vertical zinc cylinder, so that when copper filings are allowed to pass through the funnel, they separate from each other and from the funnel near the middle of the zinc cylinder, and then fall into an insulated receiver placed below. The receiver is then found to be charged negatively, and the charge increases as the filings continue to pour into it. At the same time the zinc cylinder with the copper funnel in it becomes charged more and more positively.
If now the zinc cylinder were connected with the receiver by a wire, there would be a positive current in the wire from the cylinder to the receiver. The stream of copper filings, each filing charged negatively by induction, constitutes a negative current from the funnel to the receiver, or, in other words, a positive current from the receiver to the copper funnel. The positive current, therefore, passes through the air (by the filings) from zinc to copper, and through the metallic junction from copper to zinc, just as in the ordinary voltaic arrangement, but in this case the force which keeps up the current is not chemical action but gravity, which causes the filings to fall, in spite of the electrical attraction between the positively charged funnel and the negatively charged filings.
249.] A remarkable confirmation of the theory of contact electricity is supplied by the discovery of Peltier, that, when a current of electricity crosses the junction of two metals, the junction is heated when the current is in one direction, and cooled when it is in the other direction. It must be remembered that a current in its passage through a metal always produces heat, because it meets with resistance, so that the cooling effect on the whole conductor must always be less than the heating effect. We must therefore distinguish between the generation of heat in each metal,
- ↑ North British Review, 1864, p. 353; and Proc. R. S., June 20, 1867.
