But is there such an available force? There is one, and only one,--electricity, when properly generated and suitably applied. It is an axiom of electrical science that any fluid which will at all conduct a current of electricity can be decomposed by a current of electricity. (See Urbanitsky's work, "Electricity in the Service of Man," Cassell's edition, page 154.) It is there stated (page 152), "We have frequently had occasion to mention certain chemical effects of electricity,--namely, the decomposition of gaseous compounds into simple gases." Page 157, "Whatever the substances we expose to the action of the galvanic current, decomposition takes place proportional to the strength of the current." Page 152, "Hydrogen is always evolved at the negative pole of the battery and oxygen at the positive pole. The gases can then be collected in different tubes, the hydrogen tube receiving twice as much gas as the oxygen tube; since water consists of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, it follows that the galvanic current decomposes water into its constituents. As chemically pure water has so great a resistance as almost to force us to consider it a non-conductor, it is generally acidulated with sulphuric acid. The smallest amount of acid diminishes the resistance considerably. The silent discharge is far more effective in bringing about this transformation than the spark discharge." Page 37, "Gases are bad conductors of electricity; if it had been otherwise, we should never have become acquainted with electricity, as it would have been conducted away by the air as fast as it was generated. The vacuum also does not conduct electricity, but moist air becomes a partial conductor. Moist air also will spoil the insulation of non-conducting supports. All bodies are more or less hygroscopic, and the moisture condensed on their surfaces thus turns the best insulators into conductors. Change of temperature also influences conductivity." Page 63, "When using induction machines, the moisture of the air often causes experiments to fail, especially before large audiences. The atmosphere becomes saturated with moisture, and it is often impossible to get the machine in working order." Several desiccating devices are mentioned by the authors of this work, as used with such machines, to prevent such dissipation or conduction of electricity from the machine into space by the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere. In describing the aurora borealis (page 93), these authors say, "The rarefied air is nearer the earth at the poles than the equator, in consequence of the earth's centrifugal motion, and, the earth being negatively electrified, negative electricity will flow from this point, directed against the positively electrified upper layers of rarefied air." Same work, pages 127, 128, "The resistance (in liquids) diminishes as the temperature increases, a result which is exactly opposite to what occurs with metals. Conductivity for