Electrolysis of Secondary Compounds. 253 



drates, are transferred to the zincode in smaller quantity than 

 is the case with those from which distinct hydrates are ob- 

 tainable. 



(«. h.) We were extremely anxious to devise some means 

 of ascertaining the phajnomena of transfer in the case of simple 

 electrolysis, but were forced to abandon the attempt after many 

 trials, from the difficulty of procuring any substance which 

 would answer the purpose of a permeable diaphragm, whilst 

 it could resist the heat which is necessary to bring the chlo- 

 rides, or similar binary compounds into the liquid state. We, 

 however, ascertained that when a solution of chloride of so- 

 dium in water was electrolysed, the chlorine was transferred 

 to the zincode in greater quantity than the sodium fi'om it. 



{a. i.) To remove the possibility of its being thought that 

 water in these experiments conveyed the force independently 

 of the presence of the saline bodies (a supposition hardly re- 

 concilable with the phaenomena observed where the saline so- 

 lution was used throughout the apparatus), the following ex- 

 periments were made. The platinode cell of the diaphragm 

 apparatus was charged with dilute sulphuric acid, and the 

 zincode with distilled water; one diaphragm alone was em- 

 ployed. The arrangement conducted so badly, that in an 

 hour and a half, with twenty cells of the battery, only 1'5 

 cubic inch of hydrogen was collected from the platinode. The 

 apparatus was then recharged and the electrodes reversed, the 

 water being now at the platinode, and the acid at the zincode. 

 In an hour and a half 2*8 cubic inches of hydrogen were col- 

 lected from the platinode. From the imperfect conducting 

 power evinced by water in these and other experiments, we 

 can hardly suppose that the current, in cases where the base 

 is not transferred, is carried by the electrolysis of this fluid, 

 mysterious and ill-understood as its electrical relations un- 

 doubtedly are. 



7. In reviewing the results which we have obtained from the 

 preceding experiments, and the conclusions which we are en- 

 titled to draw from them, it will, we think, be admitted that 

 many of them are of the highest interest and importance, and 

 some of them at variance with the fundamental principles of 

 electrolysis which have been hitherto admitted. 



We have seen that in every instance the definite action of 

 the electric current is maintained ; and its passage through a 

 compound liquid conductor is always marked by the disen- 

 gagement at the platinode of hydrogen or the metallic element, 

 or else of a group of substances, like ammonium, constituting 

 an equivalent compound; and the simultaneous disengage- 

 ment at the zincode of the non-metallic element, or a group 



