Electrical Conduction in Dilute Amalgams.

The modem theory of electrical conduction in metals, according to which the metal is dissociated to give a positive ion of low mobility, which is characteristic of the metal, and a negative carrier of high mobility, which is common to all metals and presumably to be identified with the electron, has given rise to certain misgivings, despite the complete analogy between this theory and the accepted theory of electrolytic dissociation. It is true that in the case of solid metals the crystalline forces, which lead to the formation of the various components of the metal into symmetrical space-lattices, produce conditions which have no counterpart in liquid electrolytes, but in the case of a liquid metal like mercury we must assume that it differs from any electrolyte -we are tempted to say from any other electrolyte-only in as far as one of its ions has properties which differ very greatly in degree, but probably not in kind, from the properties of other ions. If therefore we should ultimately find that the Arrhenius theory of ionization is