138 EXPERIMENTS OF GALVANIC ELECTRICITY. 



The Urge plates IV. When gold wires, connected with the ends of the bat- 

 difengage moft ter were mac J e to a ft upon fl id<! j the common method of 

 gas j provided J r 



the conduftor's communication, being placed at a diftance from each other, it 

 power be good. was f oun d t h a t the rapidity of the evolution of the gafes was 

 much more influenced by the conducting power of the fluid, 

 than it is in common cafes with fmall plates. In comparing 

 the action of a battery of twenty plates, of five inches in dia- 

 meter, upon fulphuric acid, nitric acid, and various faline fo- 

 lutions, with that of the large battery, it was obferved, in 

 feveral experiments, that the gas was difengaged much fafter, 

 and in larger quantities, from the wires connected with the 

 large plates, whilft the action of the two arrangements upon 

 water was nearly the fame. This fad, combined with other 

 fads of the fame kind, feems to (how, that the quantity of 

 electricity excited in the arrangements with large furfaces, is 

 much greater than that produced in thofe with fmall furfaces ; 

 and that it is capable of pafling with facility through the more 

 perfect conductors, whilft, from the nature of the feries, its cir- 

 culation is impeded, comparatively to a great extent, by im- 

 perfect conductors ; a conjecture that has been already formed 

 by different philofophers. 

 Attempt to pro- V. As the great quantity of electricity made to circulate 

 duce change in through perfect conductors, by means of the large apparatus, 

 the galvanic* ig- increafes their affinity for oxigene more perhaps than any 

 nition of char- known agent, and as charcoal by means of it can be rendered 

 white-hot, and kept in conftant combuftion in oxigene gas or 

 atmofpherical air, I thought of trying the effects of the electri- 

 cal ignition of this fubftance, upon muriatic acid gas confined 

 over mercury. 

 Experiment. The experiment was made by means of a fmall glafs tube *, 



containing a flip of platina hermetically fealed into it, and 

 having a piece of charcoal attached to its lower extremity : 

 the communication was effected by means of iron wires ; and 

 the charcoal was made white-hot, by fucceflive contacts con- 

 tinued for nearly two hours. At the end of this time, the mu- 

 riatic acid gas had diminished a very little in volume : much 

 white matter had formed upon the charcoal, which was not 

 fenfibly confumed. When the gas was examined, J of it were 

 inftantly abforbed by water, and the remainder proved to be 



* For a description of this apparatus, fee p. 214. 



inflam- 



