4S4« Dr. Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity. 



rent is definite in the former case, so is the current associated 

 with the decomposition also definite in the latter (862. &c). 



860. Let us apply this in support of what I have surmised 

 respecting the enormous electric power of each particle or 

 atom of matter (856.). I showed in a former series of these 

 Researches on the relation by measure of common and voltaic 

 electricity, that two wires, one of platina and one of zinc, 

 each one eighteenth of an inch in diameter, placed five six- 

 teenths of an inch apart, and immersed to the depth of five 

 eighths of an inch in acid, consisting of one drop of oil of 

 vitriol and four ounces of distilled water at a temperature of 

 about 60° Fahr., and connected at the other extremities by a 

 copper wire eighteen feet long, and one eighteenth of an inch 

 in thickness, yielded as much electricity in little more than 

 three seconds of time as a Leyden battery charged by thirty 

 turns of a very large and powerful plate electric machine in full 

 action (371. )• This quantity, though sufficient if passed at 

 once through the head of a rat or a cat to have killed it, as 

 by a flash of lightning, was evolved by the mutual action of 

 so small a portion of the zinc wire and water in contact with 

 it, that the loss of weight sustained by either would be inap- 

 preciable by our most delicate instruments ; and as to the 

 water which could be decomposed by that current, it must 

 have been insensible in quantity, for no trace of hydrogen 

 appeared upon the surface of the platina during those three 

 seconds. 



861. What an enormous quantity of electricity, therefore, 

 is required for the decomposition of a single grain of water ! 

 We have already seen that it must be in quantity sufficient to 

 sustain a platina wire T ^ ¥ of an inch in thickness, red hot, 

 in contact with the air for three minutes and three quarters 

 (853.), a quantity which is almost infinitely greater than that 

 which could be evolved by the little standard voltaic arrange- 

 ment to which 1 have just referred (860. 371.). I have en- 

 deavoured to make a comparison by the loss of weight of such 

 a wire in a given time in such an acid, according to a prin- 

 ciple and experiment to be almost immediately described 

 (862.) ; but the proportion is so high, that I am almost afraid 

 to mention it. It would appear that 800,000 such charges of 

 the Leyden battery as I have referred to above, would be 

 necessary to supply electricity sufficient to decompose a single 

 grain of water; or, if I am right, to equal the quantity of elec- 

 tricity which is naturally associated with the elements of that 

 grain of water, endowing them with their mutual chemical 

 affinity. 



862. In further proof of this high electric condition of the 



