348 Mr. Grove on the Gas Voltaic Battery. 



tubes, just in the proportion in which oxygen gas is eliminated 

 in the voltameter, and when in a similar battery placed by its 

 side, similarly charged, but not connected in closed circuit, 

 not the slightest rise takes place in any tube, it seems impos- 

 sible to adopt the conclusion that the oxygen has nothing to 

 do with the current. Here we have no slight galvanoscopic 

 effects, but chemical effects capable of quantitative admeasure- 

 ment, capable of being continued to an extent only limited by 

 the size of the apparatus, and equivalent to the chemical effects 

 observable at the voltameter. If, on the other hand, hydrogen 

 and water be the only active elements, what becomes of the 

 hydrogen ? If it combine with the water, we undoubtedly 

 should by this means be able to obtain a suboxide of hydro- 

 gen*, a result of which I have not seen the slightest symptom 

 in a long course of experiments on this subject. Even if we 

 assume the action of the oxygen to be a depolarizing one, as 

 suggested by Dr. Schcenbein, this comes to the same thing, as 

 this depolarization can only be accounted for as being effected 

 by the combination of the oxygen with hydrogen ; and we 

 might conversely assume this combination to be the efficient 

 cause of the current, and the depolarization to take place in 

 the hydrogen tubes. It seems to me that the effects at both 

 anode and cathode are reciprocally dependent. The matter 

 appears to me so clear that I should not have entered into de- 

 tail upon it, were it not for the published letter of Dr. Schcen- 

 bein above mentioned, and that the superiority of the hydro- 

 gen is prima facie very striking; knowing also the fondness 

 with which we all adhere to preconceived opinions, as the 

 consideration of the action of spongy or clean platinum on 

 mixed gases led me to the discovery of the gas battery, I felt 

 that I might be too apt to measure the correctness of my opi- 

 nions by the success of the experiments to which they led, and 

 therefore hesitated too confidently to rest upon what appeared 

 to my mind positive demonstration. 



Having verified the rationale of the action of the gas bat- 

 tery, I now sought to extend it to other gases, and caused ar- 

 rangements of ten cells to be charged with such gases as were 

 sufficiently insoluble to remain in the tubes time enough for 

 experimental investigation. In all the following experiments, 

 besides the ten cells charged in series, a single cell charged 

 with similar gases and electrolyte was placed by the side, but 

 with the terminals unconnected : thus, when the battery cir- 

 cuit had been closed for some time, by comparing the changes 

 which had taken place in the battery tubes with those in the 



* I see by a recent paper of Dr. Schcenbein that he believes this to be 

 the case, Archives de V ' Electricite, No. 7, p. 73. 



