1 78 On the Composition of the Muriatic Add. 



positive pole, being deprived of their elasticity, could not 

 they combine themselves immediately with the other mole- 

 culas of water abandoned by hydrogen in the neighbourhood 

 ot the wire of the negative pole of the electrical column, 

 since they are equally deprived of elasticity ? The thing is 

 selt-evidciit : in fact, if moleculae of oxygen and hydrogen 

 deprived of elasticity, and in the necessary proportions to 

 form water, could enter into immediate combination and 

 not form water, it would be impossible that water could 

 exist at all. 



These considerations did not escape the celebrated Hum- 

 boldt and Gay-Lussac : they understood extremely well that 

 in the experiment of the English chemists the water could 

 not be oxygenated and hydrogenated but for a single mo- 

 ment alone; seeing that the total absorption of hydrogen on 

 one side, and of oxygen on the other, shows that the water 

 is really neither hydrogenated nor oxygenated ; because, in 

 order to become so, it would be necessary that it should 

 absorb one of the two gases in a proportion difTerent from 

 that required for the composition of water: then, if it ab- 

 sorbs these two gases in the proportion indicated, we ought 

 to conceive that the properties of one of these would be 

 neutralized by those of the other, and that consequently, in 

 the experiment quoted, the water might hydrogenate or 

 oxygenate itself for a single moment, but that it could not 

 remain in this state in a permanent manner, for the reason 

 already mentioned. 



But to return to our subject, which is to resolve the pro- 

 blem of the solution upon which the conversion of water 

 into oxygenated acid depends. 



A volume of water, distilled and deprived of air, beina; 

 given, decompose it in suc-i a manner that the element of 

 which it ought to clear itself gradually mav be very pure 

 oxygen. 



Solution. 



Take a glass tube of any form yon please, provided that 

 it has two orifices, the one small and roundtii, the other of 

 a diameter large enough to introduce the water without trou- 

 ble : through the firBt of thc«i; orifices make a gold wire 



pa>s 



