62 ON SOME CHEMICAL AGENCIES Of ELECTRICITY. 



mES lll d S " us lo il0pe ' tnat tne new nl0(le °* wfe 8 ** ma >* leacI us to tfte 



applications, discovery of the true elements of bodies, if the materials 

 acted on be employed in a certain state of concentration, ami 

 the electricity be sufficiently exalted. For if chemical union 

 be of the nature which I have ventured to suppose, however 

 Strong the natural electrical energies of the elements of bodies 

 may be, yet there is every probability of a limit to their 

 strength: whereas the powers of our artificial instruments 

 seem capable of indefinite increase. 



Alterations of electrical equilibrium are continually taking 

 jplace in nature; and it is probable that this influence, in its 

 faculties of decomposition and transference, considerably in* 

 lerferes with the chemical alterations occurring in different 

 parts of our system. 



The electrical appearances which precede earthquakes and 

 volcanic eruptions, and which have been described by the 

 greater number of observers of these awful events, admit of 

 very easy explanation on the principles that have been stated. 



Beside the cases of sudden and violent change?, there must 

 be constant and tranquil alterations, in which electricity is 

 concerned, produced in various parts of the interior strata of 

 our globe. 



Where pyritous strata and strata of coal-blende occur, 

 •where the pure metals or the sulphurets are found in contact 

 with each other, or any conducting substances, and where 

 different strata contain different sahne menstrua, electricity 

 must be continually manifested; and it is very probable, that 

 many mineral formations have been materially influenced, or 

 even occasioned by its agencies. 



In an experiment that 1 made of electrifying a mixed solu- 

 tion of muriates of iron, of copper, oi tin, and of cobalt, in a 

 positive vessel, distilled water being in a negative vessel, all 

 » the four oxides passed along the asbestus, and into the nega- 



tube, and a yellow metallic crust formed on the wire, 

 and the oxides arranged themselves in a mixed state round 

 the base of it. 



Fn another experiment, in winch carbonate of copper was 



diffused through water in a state of minute division, and a 



~.tive wire placed in a small perforated cube of zeolite in 



the 



