"33 On the Decompositibn of Water, 



(c) When even the component principles of water are not 

 susceptible of any other proportion of combination than of 

 that which makes it water, the latter would not be less de- 

 composed in the manner described; but there would neither 

 be oxygenation, nor hydrogenation, nor acidity, nor alka- 

 linity, in any part. 



XXIII. The production of an acid at the positive pole, 

 and that of an alkali at the negative*, urged bv Galvanic 

 electricity, is also a support to the theory proposed ; for, 

 according to analogy, we ought to attribute the former to an 

 oxygenation, and the other to the presence of hydrogen f. 

 See § IX. 



My apparatus having remained several days in action, the 

 cloths moistened with a solution of muriate of soda were 

 here and there covered with a saline efflorescence, which was 

 nothing else than soda united to carbonic acid which it had 

 absorbed from the air. 



XXIV. The polar arrangement, such as exists in the ele- 

 mentary molecules of water traversed by the Galvanic cur- 

 rent, ought to be established equally among the elementary 

 molecules of every other liquid body, provided they are soli- 

 cited by the same forces. In the metallic solutions the elec- 

 tric polarity takes place among the elements of the oxide, 

 the oxygen of which passes to the positive pole, and the 

 metal of it is deposited at the negative pole. The acid re- 

 acts upon these metallic particles which it holds in solution ; 

 but being decomposed, as well by this re-action as by the 

 electrical power, the revival does not the less take place. 



XXV. I tilled a bent tube with two different metallic so- 

 lutions, in such a manner that each of them, without being 

 mixed with the other, occupied one of the moieties of the 



Tincture of turnsole, traversed by the Galvanic current, becomes red 

 around the positive pole, and returns to the blue colour upon changu.^ the 

 respective position of the two poles; but these effects may be explained by 

 the action of the orygen and the hydrogen at the moment of their produc- 

 tion upon the colouring matter, and are not sufficient to deduce from it the 

 rffiilify and alkalinity. 



f f fydrogen is a constituent part of volatile alkali, and oxygen enters into 

 Ave composition of all the acid* with the nature of which we arc acquainted. 



1 tube, 



