On some Chemical Agencies of Electricity . 5 



Mr. Sylvester, however, in a paper published in Mr. 

 Nicholson'!: journal for last August, states, that though no 

 fixed alkali or muriatic acid appears when a single vessel is 

 employed, yet that they are both formed when two vessels 

 are used. And to do away all objections with regard to vege- 

 table substances or glass, he conducted his process in a ves- 

 sel made of baked tobacco-pipe clay inserted in a crucible of 

 platina. I have no doubt of the correctness of his results ; 

 but the conclusion appears objectionable. He conceives that 

 he obtained fixed alkali, because the fluid, after being heated 

 and evaporated, left a matter that tinged turmeric brown, 

 which would have happened had it been lime, a substance 

 that exists in considerable quantities in all pipeclay; and 

 even allowing the presence of fixed alkali, the materials em- 

 ployed for the manufacture of tobacco-pipes are not at all 

 such as to exclude the combinations of this substance. 



I resumed the inquiry; I procured small cylindrical cupS 

 of agate, of the capacity of about 1 -4th of a cubic inch each. 

 They were boiled for some hours in distilled water, and a 

 piece of very white and transparent amianthus that had been 

 treated in the same way, was made to connect them toge- 

 ther ; they were filled with distilled water, and exposed, by 

 means of two platina wires, to a current of electricity from 

 150 pairs of plates of copper and zinc four inches square, 

 made active by means of sokuion of alum. After 4S hours 

 the process was examined : paper tinged with litmus plunged 

 into the tube containing the transmitting or positive wire, 

 was immediately strongly reddened. Paper coloured by tur- 

 meric introduced into the other tube had its colour much 

 deepened ; the acid matter gave a very slight degree of tur- 

 bidncss to solution of nitrate of silver. The fluid that af- 

 fected turmeric retained this property after being stronglv 

 boiled, and it appeared more vivid as the quantity became 

 reduced by evaporation ; carbonate of ammonia was mixed 

 with it, and the whole dried and exposed to a strong heat : 

 a minute quantity of white matter remained, which, as far 

 as my examination could iro, had the propirties of carbonate 

 of soda. I compared it with sin)ilar minute portions of the 

 pure carbonates ol' potash and soda. It was not so deli- 

 A 3 qoc?cerit 



