426 Mr. Grove on the Gas Voltaic Battery. 



which was continuous ; the liquid rose slowly but uniformly in 

 the oxygen tubes ; a gas was evolved in the alternate tubes, 

 which proved to be pure nitrogen. After three weeks closed 

 circuit, the gases collected, measured, and averaged gave for 

 each tube, 



Nitrogen evolved . . . = (V07 cubic inch. 

 Oxygen absorbed . . . =0*12 

 Experiment 27. — To examine whether the alkaline character 

 of ammonia had anything to do with the effect, ten cells were 

 charged with oxygen and solution of caustic potash, but pro- 

 duced no effect. 



These experiments are strongly corroborative, and seem to 

 me conclusive as to the relation between the action of the gas 

 battery and catalysis by spongy platinum. Experiment 26 is 

 also remarkable in regard to the binary theory of electrolysis, 

 but upon this point I will not here enter. 



Applying the hypothesis of Grotthus to the gas battery, we 

 may suppose that when the circuit is completed, at each point 

 of contact of oxygen, water and platinum, in the oxygen tube, 

 a molecule of hydrogen leaves its associated molecule of oxygen 

 to unite with one of the free gas; the oxygen thus thrown off 

 unites with the hydrogen of the adjoining molecule of water; 

 and so on until the last molecule of oxygen unites with a mole- 

 cule of the free hydrogen ; or we may conversely assume that 

 the action commences in the hydrogen tube. In all these 

 cases we should ever bear in mind that we proceed by steps 

 which nature, as hitherto tested by experiment, has not re- 

 cognised. All we can safely predicate of the actions at anode 

 and cathode is that they are correlations ; although they take 

 place at a distance, the one has no more been proved to take 

 place without the other, or before the other, than height has 

 been proved to exist without depth. I therefore allude to this 

 hypothesis, not as literally adhering to it, but because it is ge- 

 nerally received, and may tend to associate the action of the 

 gas battery with the ordinary phaenomena of electrolysis. 



A number of hypotheses has been and may be proposed to 

 account for these and other mysterious phsenomenal relations ; 

 they all agree in being assimilations of what is unfamiliar to 

 what is familiar. They are undoubtedly useful as didactic il- 

 lustrations, and it is as such that they have hitherto contri- 

 buted to advance science. It is, however, a curious circum- 

 stance, and worthy of some consideration, that the voltaic hy- 

 pothesis of Grotthus, the emissive and undulatory hypotheses 

 of light and heat, and, as far as I am aware, all physical hy- 

 potheses hitherto propounded, represent natural agencies as 

 effects of motion and matter. These two seem the most di- 



