350 Mr Connexu on the Action of 
self, arising from the circumstance, that, when completely freed 
from water, its points of fusion and decomposition are extremely 
near one another. I freed it from water by keeping it in a 
fused state, in a tube, for a considerable time after a pertion of 
the acid was decomposed, and until water was no longer evolved. 
The residue was dry and hard, and was immediately transferred 
to a long bent and narrow tube ; where platinum wires connected 
with the two ends of a battery of fifty pairs of two-inch plates 
were brought into contact with it, the before-mentioned galva- 
nometer being also introduced into the circuit. The iodic acid 
was then heated to fusion by a spirit-lamp, when immediately a 
considerable and even permanent deflection of the needle took 
place. Although it was thus quite manifest that a current passed, 
it was impossible for me to say with certainty that the acid was 
decomposed by the voltaic agency, because the heat applied was 
itself sufficient to cause decomposition and volatilization of iodine 
on both sides, 
I repeated Mr Farapay’s experiment on fused boracic acid, 
and at first thought that I had succeeded in decomposing it. 
The acid was fused on platinum wire in the reducing flame of a 
large lamp of melted tallow, acted on by a hydrostatic table 
blowpipe, the voltaic power employed consisting of 216 pairs of 
four-inch plates. There was an evident action on the galvano- 
meter, and sparks were visible from the fused acid. Similar re- 
sults were afterwards obtained with only thirty-six pairs of four- 
inch plates. But, on repeating the experiment with the 216 
pairs, and fusing the acid by the oxyhydrogen blewpipe, I was 
surprised to find that there was no action on the galvanometer. 
The idea which I then formed was, that the reducing action of 
the carbonaceous vapour of the lamp flame had aided the voltaic 
agency, but that in the oxyhydrogen flame, which is of course 
destitute of carbonaceous matter, the voltaic current alone could 
not produce the effect. This view, if well founded, would un- 
doubtedly have been an example of voltaic agency, other affini- 
ena ———<— se 
