5<2 ON SOME CHEMICAL AGENCIES OF ELECTIUCITY. 



Relations be- for the combined effect of many particles possessing a feeble 



twfccn the elec- , . . , . * . , , 



trical energies electrical energy may be conceived equal or even superior 



of bodies and to the effect of a few particles possessing a strong electrical 

 affinities. * energy: and the facts mentioned, page 38, confirm the sup- 

 position: for concentrated alkaline lixivia resist the trans- 

 mission of acids by electricity much more powerfully than 

 weak ones. 



Allowing combination to depend upon the balance of the 

 natural electrical energies of bodies, it is easy to conceive 

 that a measure may be found of the artificial energies, as to 

 intensity and quantity produced in the common electrical 

 machine, or the Voltaic apparatus, capable of destroying 

 this equilibrium ; and such a measure would enable ns to 

 make a scale of electrical powers corresponding to degrees 

 of affinity. 



In the circuit of the Voltaic apparatus, completed by 

 metallic wires and water, the strength of the opposite elec- 

 tricities diminishes from the points of contact of the wires 

 towards the middle point in the water, which is necessarily 

 neutral. In a body or water of considerable length it pro- 

 bably would not be difficult to assign the places in which 

 the different neutral compounds yielded to, or resisted, de- 

 composition. Sulphate of barytes, in all cases that 1 tried, 

 required immediate contact with the wire: solution of sul- 

 phate of potash exhibited no marks of decomposition with 

 the power of 150, when connected in a circuit of water ten 

 inches in length, at four inches from the positive point; but 

 when placed within two inches, its alkali was slowly repelled 

 and its acid attracted*. 



Whenever 



* In this experiment, the water was contained in a circular glass ba- 

 sis two inches deep, the communication was made by pieces of amian- 

 thus of about the eighth of an inch in breadth The saline solution 

 filled a half ounce measure, and the distance between the solution and 

 the water, at both points of communication, was a quarter of an inch. 

 I mention these circumstances because the quantity of fluid and the ex- 

 tent of surface materially influence the result in trials of this kind. Wa- 

 ter included in glass siphons forms a much less perfect conducting chain 

 than when diffused upon the surface of fibrous nonconducting substances 

 of much smaller volume than the diameter of the siphons,. 1 attempted 

 to employ siphons in some of my first experiments $ but the -very great 



inferiority 



