406 
that if water be subjected to the influence of the electric cur- 
rent, no matter what the intensity or acting surface, the quan- 
tity decomposed will be exactly proportionate to the quantity 
of electricity which has passed. All this may be very true, 
when applied to the voltaic influence, but, if so, the law seems 
to individualize common electricity, and to dissever it from its 
alleged identity with voltaic electricity. When we find two 
estimates of an effect to agree pretty well, while a third is forty- 
two times greater than one, and thirty-eight times greater than 
the other, it is plain there is a monstrous error somewhere ; 
and hence, before we venture to draw any conclusion, it will 
be necessary to investigate the grounds on which the discor- 
dant opinion has been formed. This becomes the more neces- 
sary, when it is recollected that the stronghold of those who 
maintain the identity of the voltaic and electric agents is the 
almost unlimited supply of the latter at a low intensity, which, 
they affirm, can be brought into action during the exhibition 
of any phenomenon caused by the former. 
Faraday has affirmed, as already observed, that one grain 
of water, decomposed by four grains of zine, can evolve elec- 
tricity to an enormous amount, no less than 240 millions of 
one-inch sparks. To test this, an experiment was made, in 
which diluted sulphuric acid was made to act on a voltaic pair 
consisting of four grains of zine foil and a plate of platinum, 
the metals being separately connected with a differential elec- 
trometer with insulated, detached, and moveable gold leaves. 
The solution of the zine occupied one minute and a half, and 
during this period the gold leaves were rapidly approached 
until they touched, and then rapidly withdrawn; there was 
not the slightest attraction or repulsion, although, according 
to Faraday’s estimate, the equivalent of 240 millions of one- - 
inch sparks was passing between them at the time. Yet, when 
the same electrometer was subjected to the action of a voltaic 
series, consisting of twenty pairs of three-quarter-inch plates, 
both attraction and adhesion took place. 
