4 Dr. Schweigger on Prof. Dcebereiner's 



with M. Schweigger, as possessing a crystallo-electric power. 

 — In order to examine these suppositions, I have made a 

 great number of experiments, but have not yet obtained any 

 result in confirmation of either. 1 brought into contact with 

 the explosive mixture, entire and broken pieces of boracite, 

 tourmaline, diamonds, finely powdered coal, graphite, silver 

 and copper dust ; and none of these substances effected, at 

 common temperatures, a condensation of the gases. No con- 

 densation of hydrogen occurred when I placed it in con- 

 tact with platinum dust, and the following substances respec- 

 tively: peroxide of manganese, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid, 

 nitrous gas, and other oxides. I further exposed the plati- 

 num dust to mixtures, 1st, of carburetted hydrogen and car- 

 bonic acid gas; 2dly, of olefiant gas and carbonic oxide; 

 3dly, of the vapour of alcohol and carbonic acid gas ; 4thly, of 

 sulphuretted hydrogen and carbonic acid gas ; but none of 

 these mixtures became condensed or changed in their nature. 

 I expected the reverse; for I thought that the elements of 

 water, which are contained in all these gaseous mixtures, 

 would act upon each other, and would by that means give rise 

 to new combinations. This and many other experiments, by 

 which I endeavoured to ascertain the relation of hydrogen 

 gas, when combined with other substances, as in ammonia and 

 sulphuretted hydrogen, olefiant gas and carburetted hydro- 

 gen, to platinum and oxygen gas, — convinced me, that the ac- 

 tion of that metal is confined to mixtures of free hydrogen 

 and oxygen gas ; and that its action is probably of a peculiar 

 nature — that it is neither mechanical, electric, nor magnetic." 

 Although I perfectly agree with my friend Dcebereiner, 

 that these remarkable phaenomena are owing to some new 

 principle of nature, yet I am inclined to follow the hint thrown 

 out by him in the passage just cited, to investigate these phae- 

 nomena, after my own manner, on the principles of crystallo- 

 electricity ; and to combine with them other phaenomena, the 

 union of the observations on which will, perhaps, be useful for 

 further investigations. An arrangement of a series of phaeno- 

 mena so as to connect any particular phaenomenon with the 

 whole, in a natural manner, is alone what we understand by a 

 theory in physics. With respect to my electro-chemical theory, 

 I am not satisfied, as is usually the case, by merely calling the 

 chemical attraction an electrical one; by which change of name, 

 it appears to me that but little is gained, so long as we do not 

 refer the particular chemical changes of bodies to electrical 

 laws, but continue to deduce them, in the old manner, with 

 Dr. Black, from fixed caloric. The Voltaic battery has in a 

 direct manner forced us to renounce the language of Black's 



theory 



