50 Mr. W. G. Armstrong 07J the Electricity of Effluent Steam. 



To obtain a satisfactory result, we ought to dissolve a some- 

 what larger quantity of potassium in the alcohol, and employ 

 a still more energetic electric current, and foils approached to 

 one another in the same plane, when the quantities of hydro- 

 gen liberated from the two fluids will be found to be very 

 nearly equal in amount ; and the comparison is best instituted 

 during the early stages of the action, because the potash gets 

 saturated with the secondary products of oxidation, and the 

 conducting power diminishes, whilst the electric energy is also 

 on the decline. 



I still consider the expei'iments, now and formerly detailed, 

 to afford the only direct experimental proof which we yet have 

 of the existence of water, as such, in absolute alcohol. The 

 oxidation of potassium in alcohol, with evolution of hydrogen, 

 is perhaps the nearest approach of other experiments to such 

 evidence; but still the tendency to form aether, and the affinity 

 of potash for that substance, might give rise to the evolution 

 of hydrogen. But it appears to be quite impossible, on elec- 

 tro-chemical principles, to suppose, that under electric agency 

 a part of the hydrogen of the alcohol should go to one pole, 

 and the remainder, with its other constituents, to the other, 

 there being no evidence of any o)ie substance at the positive 

 pole, which could have been in combination with hydrogen 

 as an electrolytic compound ; and, besides, we have direct 

 proof that it is oxygen which passes to the positive pole, 

 because the effects which take place there are effects of 

 oxidation, and under particular arrangements that oxygen 

 becomes even visible. We have thus oxygen going to the 

 one pole and hydrogen to the other, and the latter in the pro- 

 portion in which it exists in water ; and it is only a truism to 

 say that the direct voltaic decomposition of any substance can- 

 not take place, unless that substance previously has a distinct 

 and substantive existence. 



XII. 0)1 the Electricity of Ejffluetit Steam. No. II. ByW.G. 

 Armstrong, Esq. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 

 Gentlemen, 



TN concluding my last communication on the above subject*, 

 I alluded to experiments which had then been commenced 

 to try the effect of insulating the boiler and entirely conden- 

 sing the issuing steam. These experiments have since been 

 completed, and many others have also been tried which sub- 

 sequently suggested themselves, all of which I shall now pro- 

 ceed to describe. 



* See our last Number, vol. xvii., p. 452. 



