ee ee es 
Voltaie Electricity on Alcohol, &c. 327 
Before applying it to this purpose, | thought it right to investi- 
gate the principles on which it was founded, and the degree of 
confidence which might be placed in its indications, and I shall 
afterwards have occasion to allude to this subject more particu- 
larly. In the mean time I shall only observe, that I have fully 
satisfied myself of the accuracy of Mr Farapay’s view, that when 
the same electric current passes through two different aqueous 
solutions, and exerts a decomposing agency on the water of these 
solutions, the quantity of that liquid decomposed in each solu- 
tion will be exactly the same ; and hence, conversely, when the 
same quantity of hydrogen and oxygen, or of one or other of these 
gases, is evolved from two different fluids by the passage through 
them of the same current of electricity, we have strong grounds 
for concluding that in both cases water is the subject of decom- 
position. 
In applying these principles to the present case, I employed 
tubes having platinum wires cemented into them by the blow- 
pipe, and terminated by pieces of platinum foil of one inch long 
by one-fifth broad, soldered with gold to their extremities. Two 
of these tubes were filled with the aleohol under examination, 
and inverted in a small evaporating basin ; whilst two others were 
filled with the aqueous liquid with which the alcoholic fluid was 
compared, and inverted as the others. These tubes were then 
connected as in Fig. 5. Occasionally, also, the alcoholic liquid 
was placed in the tube A of Fig. 6, having a wire cemented 
at N, and another passing through a cork at P; and this tube 
was connected with those containing the aqueous liquid, as in 
Fig. 6. 
The experiments were made on alcohol of specific gravity .802, 
and also of specific gravity .796. The vessel A, Fig. 5, with its 
tubes was filled with alcohol of the former specific gravity, holding 
in solution 34, of potash ; and water acidulated with = of sul- 
phuric acid was placed in B. The tube P of the vessel B was 
connected with the positive pole of a battery of thirty-six pairs 
