316 Mr Conneu on the Action of 
the voltaic pile, the poles employed being of platinum foil, and 
approached to one another in an open vessel, gas was evolved 
from the negative pole, whilst none whatever appeared from the 
positive foil. A moderate voltaic power, such as a small battery 
of fifty pairs of two-inch plates, was amply sufficient to produce 
this effect. This experiment immediately recalled to my recol- 
lection a statement made a year or two ago by Dr Rircurs,* that 
when alcohol, not holding any substance in solution, was acted 
on by a powerful galvanic battery, gas was evolved from the ne- 
gative pole, whilst none appeared from the positive, and that the 
gas thus evolved was olefiant gas ; on which idea Dr Rircute con- 
cluded that the alcohol had been resolved into olefiant gas and 
water. As there was apparently a considerable analogy between 
the two observations, I was naturally led to conjecture that the 
gas evolved at the negative pole in my experiment, was olefiant 
gas ; but an examination of it soon satisfied me that this was not 
the case. The gas was collected simply by bringing the negative 
foil under a tube filled with alcohol, holding about 53, part of 
potash in solution, and inverted in an evaporating basin con- 
taining the same liquid ; the power employed being sometimes 
fifty pairs of two-inch plates, and in other instances, seventy pairs 
of four-inch plates. No gas was evolved from the positive pole. 
A small portion of the gas collected from the negative pole was 
mixed with three times its bulk of chlorine, and the mixture left 
in a dark room over water. In the course of a few hours, an ab- 
sorption had taken place to the amount of the chlorine employ- 
‘ed, without the least appearance of the formation of oily matter : 
and no farther absorption occurred in twenty-four hours. The 
residual gas was inflammable. In short, the chlorine had left the 
original gas unchanged, which was therefore not olefiant gas. I 
then proceeded to examine it in the usual way in the voltaic 
eudiometer, and, after repeated and careful trials, fully satisfied 
* Phil. Trans. 1882. 
