On some Chemical Agencies of Eledr icily. 7 



it continued to appear to the last in quantities sufficiently 

 distinguishable, and apparently equal in every case. I had 

 used every precaution : I had included the tubes in glass ves- 

 sels out of the reach of the circulating air ; all the acting 

 materials had been repeatedly washed with distilled water ; 

 and no part of them in contact with the fluid had been 

 touched by the fingers. 



The only ssubstance which I could now conceive capable 

 of furnishing the fixed alkali was the water itself. This 

 water appeared pure by the tests of nitrate of silver and mu- 

 riate of barytes ; but potash and soda, as is well known, 

 rise in small quantities in rapid distillations ; and the New 

 River water, which T made use of, contains animal and ve- 

 getable impurities, which it was easy to conceive might furnish 

 neutral salts capable of being carried over in vivid ebullition. 



To make the experiment in as refined a form as possible, 

 I procured two hollow cones of pure gold containing about 

 25 grains of water each ; they were filled with distilled wa- 

 ter, connected by a moistened piece of amianthus which had 

 been used in the former experiments, and exposed to the 

 action of a Voltaic battery of 100 pairs of plates of copper 

 and zinc of six inches square, in which the fluid was a so- 

 lution of alum and diluted sulphuric acid. In ten minutes 

 the water in the negative tube had gained the power of giving 

 a slight blue tint to litmus paper; and the water in the po- 

 sitive tube rendtretl it red. The process was continued for 

 14 hours ; the acid increased in quantity during the whole 

 time, and the water became at last very sour to the taste. 

 The alkaline properties of the fluid in the other tube, on the 

 contrary, remained stationary, and at the end of the time 

 it did not act upon litmus or turmeric paper more than in 

 the first trial : the eficct was less vivid after it had been 

 strongly heated for a minute; but evaporation and the usual 

 process proved that some fixed alkali was present. The 

 acid, as far as its properties were examined, agreed with 

 pure nitrous acid having an excess of nitrous gas. 



I repeated the experiment, and carried on the process for 



three days ; at the end of which time the water in the tube 



A 4 wa» 



