96 



Monday, 9.1th April. 

 Sir THOMAS M. BRISBANE, President, in the Chair. 



The following Communications were read : — 

 1. On the Action of Voltaic Electricity on Alcohol, Ether, 



and Aqueous Solutions. By Arthur Connell, Esq. 

 The author was led into the following investigations, from ob- 

 serving that when alcohol, holding a minute quantity of pure caus- 

 tic potash, as jig part, in solution, was acted on by a moderate 

 voltaic power, as a small battery of fifty pairs of two-inch plates, 

 evident marks of decomposition were exhibited, by an evolution of 

 gas from the negative pole, and none from the positive. The ex- 

 periment recalled to the author's recollection a statement made a 

 ie-w years ago by Dr Ritchie (Phil. Trans. 1832), that when alco- 

 hol not holding any substance in solution, was acted on by a pow- 

 erful battery, gas was given off at the negative pole, which Dr Rit- 

 chie stated to be olefiant gas. The author therefore thought, that 

 the elastic fluid evolved in his experiment might be olefiant gas ; 

 but on examining it by chlorine, and in the voltaic eudiometer, it 

 ju'oved to be hydrogen, mixed, when collected from alcohol in con- 

 tact with atmospherical air, with a variable proportion of the con- 

 stituents of atmospheric air, which had been dissolved by the li- 

 quid, but quite pure when the alcohol was exposed to the vacuum 

 of an air-pump and then acted on in a close tube. The same re- 

 sult was obtained when alcohol of sp. gr. .7928 at 66° F. was em- 

 ployed as with alcohol of .830. When the experiment was made on 

 alcohol containing jig of potash in a small tube, with poles of pla- 

 tinura-foil placed side by side at a short distance from one another, 

 and seventy pairs of four-inch plates were used, the liquid became 

 extremely hot, and even boiled, and became gradually reddish ; and 

 some carbonate of potash was precipitated ; but it was only when 

 the action was very energetic that the carbonic acid was formed. 

 Small quantities of other soluble substances, such as chloride of 

 calcium and boracic acid, produced the same eflfect as potash in 

 causing an evolution of gas, but to a much less extent. It was 

 then found that if alcohol, sp. gr. .7928, holding nothing in solution, 

 was acted on by 216 pairs of four-inch plates in a small tube with 

 j)latinum-foil poles, brought within jg or jg of an inch of one an- 

 other, gas was evolved, as before, from tlie negative pole, and none 

 from the positive ; and tJie gas proved to be hydrogen, as before, 



