LS eC OU ee 
Voltaic Electricity on Alcohol, &c. 325 
from pure alcohol, under powerful galvanic agency, and collected 
over mercury, without discovering any carbonic acid in it. The 
only secondary product I observed in that instance was a minute 
quantity of resinous matter. 
Nor is it always easy to observe the formation of carbonic 
acid, even where potash is present, when the galvanic action is 
less energetic, from not placing the foils side by side, or from 
using a smaller power. Thus, where alcohol .802, with 7}, of po- 
tash, was acted on by thirty-six pair of four-inch plates in the 
tube, Fig. 3, it was only after many hours’ action that I got 
traces of carbonate of potash, the liquid acquiring also a pale 
yellow tint from the formation of resinous matter. It is in such 
circumstances of energetic agency as those formerly mentioned* 
that the true nature of the action is best seen. 
I formerly mentioned the occasional appearance of gas at the 
positive pole, either when very dilute alcohol was acted on, or 
under peculiar circumstances, when alcohol of greater strength 
was employed. This gas I have assumed to be oxygen, from the 
circumstance of its appearing most readily when the alcohol was 
weakest, and from the whole bearing of the phenomena leading 
to the conclusion, that water was the immediate subject of the 
voltaic decomposition. My attempts to collect this gas proved 
all unsuccessful. In a platinum vessel, although a little gas, as 
already stated, was evolved from the positive pole, yet, in at- 
tempting to make it pass up into a tube, the very fine stream was 
gradually absorbed by the liquid, and nothing collected. I ex- 
pected to be more successful by acting on alcohol of moderate 
strength, containing a rather larger proportion of potash dissolv- 
ed. Alcohol sp. gr. .838 at 60°, having ;3> of potash dissolved, 
was acted on in the tube Fig. 4, the poles being platinum wire, 
and the wire A made positive by a power, in one experiment of 
* Page 317-18 
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