Abstract The author refers to the experiments of Faraday on dielectric induction, to those of Gassiot on the increase of electrical effects of tension, according as the chemical intensities of a voltaic battery are increased, and to other results, which, though supporting the view of a physico-polar state of gaseous substances intervening between oppositely electrified surfaces, have not hitherto shown any change in the arrangement of the gaseous particles dependent upon their chemical characteristics. The electric or voltaic disruptive discharge has hitherto presented only one phenomenon which offers any analogy to electrolysis, viz. that observed by Mr. Gassiot and others, of the positive terminal being more intensely heated than the negative, when the voltaic discharge passes between metals.