Mx. E. Solly’s further Experiments on Electricity. 40% 
‘ been previously using contained some impurity, most probably 
the iodide of iron, which is not unfrequently present in the 
iodine of the shops. The pure substance which I now used 
proved equally a nonconductor when fused as it had proved 
to be when solid. 
18. When iodine is distilled with five times its weight of 
chlorate of potassa, a liquid comes over, which, according 
to Wohler, is a chloride of iodine: it proved to be a very 
good conductor. Its solution in xther was also a good 
conductor, zther being as is well known a non-conductor. 
The chloride which I used. was purified by being twice 
distilled off chloride! of calcium. After the electric cur- 
rent had passed, upon examining the tube which had con- 
tained the chloride of iodine, I found that the one platinum 
wire, or that which had been the anode, was very much cor- 
roded, but still quite clean; the other, or that which had been 
the cathode, was encrusted with black matter very like iodine 
in appearance. So good a conductor indeed was this fluid, 
that the spark of a voltaic battery was hardly visibly impaired 
by interposing a small portion of it in the circuit. Great heat 
was evolved during the passage of the current, so that the li- 
quid soon boiled. 
19. The chloride of bromine and its solutions in water and 
ether were all good conductors. 
20..1 prepared iodic acid by Connel’s process and then 
heated it up to its boiling point. I kept it fused and boiling 
for about a minute, and then allowed it to cool; by this means 
more than half was decomposed and volatilized, but what re- 
mained was I believe pure iodic acid. I used it immediately 
after this to prevent absorption of moisture from the atmo- 
sphere. I then found it a most distinct insulator when solid, 
but a very good conductor when fused, so much so that a spark 
might be easily taken from its melted surface. Its aqueous 
solution was also a very good conductor, and when strong, 
iodine was precipitated at the cathode. 
21. It isvery interesting and curious that iodicacid should be- 
have thus, for as in all hitherto described experiments oxygen 
and iodine were both found to go to the same electrode, and 
as in order to the decomposition of a body the two composing 
ions must go to opposite electrodes*, it seems very unlikely that 
iodic acid should be an electrolyte: besides this, it is not com- 
posed of one proportional of each of its elements, which Mr, 
Faraday has shown to be the case with all known electrolytest. 
* Experimental Researches in Electricity, by Mr. Faraday, No. 828,— 
[Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag., vol. y. p. 425.—Eb1r.] 
+ Ibid. No. 679.—[vol. v. p. 167.] 
Third Series. Vol. 8. No.48. May 1836. ie 
