4J8 Prof. Schoenbein on the peculiar Voltaic Cofidition of Iron 



philosopher wrong. Some of the facts regarding the peculiar 

 condition of iron, and observed by Mr. Noad, are, as you wilt 

 easily perceive, quite the same as those which were already 

 stated in my letter above mentioned. In publishing them as new, 

 that gentleman was most likely not aware of my observations. 



I cannot close these lines without expressing you my sincere 

 thanks for the service which you so kindly rendered me by 

 forwarding my last paper to the Editors of the Philosophical 

 Magazine. I am, my dear Sir, very truly yours, 



Bale, April 27, 1837. C. F. ScHCENBEiN. 



LXXXI. further Experiments on the peculiar Voltaic Condi- 

 tion of Iron as excited by Peroxide of Lead, By Professor 



SCHCENBEIN. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and JournaL 

 Gentlemen, 



A S Mr. Faraday has perhaps communicated to you a letter 

 •^■^ of mine lately addressed to him, in which some new facts 

 regarding the peculiar condition of iron are stated, you will 

 lay me under many obligations to you by inserting in your 

 next publication the following remarks. In the letter alluded 

 to, I stated that by plunging an iron wire associated with per- 

 oxide of lead into a solution of common sulphate of copper 

 no current is produced, or rather, that by means of my gal- 

 vanometer I had not been able to discover one. Having since 

 made the instrument more delicate, I succeeded the other 

 day in tracing a current under the circumstances mentioned, 

 and as it may easily be supposed, a current which originates 

 in one part of the wire being not covered with peroxide of 

 lead. From this fact, and those stated in my letter to Mr. 

 Faraday, it appears in the first place, that iron combined with 

 the last-named substance and put within a solution of blue 

 vitriol gives rise to a set of phaenomena, which in every re- 

 spect are similar to those occasioned by an oxidized or pla- 

 tinized iron wire within nitric acid ; and in the second place, 

 that the peculiar condition of iron cannot be called forth by 

 means of voltaic associations, without exciting at the same time 

 a current, to which the iron turned inactive bears the relation 

 of the anode. Now from such an invariable concurrence of 

 two phaenomena, I think we may safely infer that one of them 

 is the cause of the other ; and some facts render it probable 

 that the inactivity of iron is the effect of a current, though 

 we do not yet know in the least in what manner the first is 

 occasioned by the latter. If some very weighty reasons did 



