1s On the Agency of Electricity 
‘We consider the earth as composed of a certain number of 
elements, and that the different properties of bodies depend upon 
the diferent combinations of these elementary substances. Ag- 
gregated masses undergo no change in their properties, without 
some cheinical change ‘amongst the elements that compose them ; 
and as chemical effects are now ascribed to the influence of 
electricity, the change of property which bodies obtain seems to 
be more peculiarly derived from a variation in the electrical state 
of them than from any other source. 
- The most acrid and offending bodies lose their destructive pro- 
perties by chemical or electrical combination. If it be the pro- 
perty of acids and alkalis to be corrosive, why do they lose their 
respective properties by combination, if it be not derived from the 
electrical union of the ultimate particles that compose them ? 
Even the same elements in the same quantities will receive dif- 
ferent properties under different states of electricity. The gas 
called nitrous oxide, for instance, is, according to Sir H. Davy, 
composed of reeks -six parts in a hundred oxygen, the remainder 
nitrogen; and the atmospheric air twenty-one parts oxygen, and 
the rest nitrogen, saving some inconsiderabie portion of carbonic 
acid gas. Now suppose fifteen parts oxygen be added to the at- 
mospheric air to bring the quantities of these ponderable ele- 
ments equal ; in this case, we are well aware that the properties 
of the two gases in the lungs are of a very different description, 
although their elements are the same, and yet the atmospherical 
air may be converted into the nitrous oxide by electricity. 
According to Cavendish’s experiment, if we pass electrical 
shocks through a confined portion of atmospherical air, we pro- 
duce nitrous gas; but in this experiment a portion of the nitro- 
gen is rejected, and the electrical combination of the oxygen 
with the remaining nitrogen is in greater proportion than in the 
atmospherical air: if we present even an oxidable metal to the 
nitrous gas, it loses a portion of its oxygen, and is converted into 
nitrous oxide. 
The different properties of the two elements, oxygen and ni- 
trogen, in these three different states of combination, seem pe- 
culiarly to point out how much the properties of bodies are pate 
duced by their different states of electricity. 
The same principle is strikingly shown from the effects pro- 
duced by the vinous and acetous fermentations. Oxygen, hydro- 
gen and carbon compose saccharine matter: this in solution 
undergoes an electrical process called the vinous fermentation, 
and alcohol is produced from the same elements as the sugar 
and water. Another electrical change called the acetous fer- 
mentation absorbs a further quantity of oxygen, and wine is con- 
. verted 
