498 Mr. Grove on the Electro-chemical Polarity of Gases. 



absorbed equal to that which would have been evolved if the same 

 substances had entered into combination." 



It would, I conceive, be impossible to express a physical law 

 in language more precise, or ha\ang less of the character of con- 

 jecture. I have not considered it necessary to extend this Note 

 by quoting the experimental proofs, which will be found partly 

 in the papers from which I have made these extracts, and partly 

 in my other publications on the Heat of Combination. 



Queen's College, Belfast, 

 November 12, 1852. 



LXXIX. On the Electro-chemical Polaritrj of Gases. 



By W. R. Grove, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.* 



[With a Plate.] 



THE different effect of electricity upon gases and liquids has 

 long been a subject of interest to physical inquirers. There 

 are, as far as I am aware, no experiments which show any ana- 

 logy in the electrization of gases to those effects now commonly 

 comprehended under the term electrolysis. Whether gases at all 

 conduct electricity, properly speaking, or whether its transmis- 

 sion is not always by the disruptive discharge, the discharge by 

 convection, or something closely analogous, is perhaps a doubtful 

 question ; but I feel strongly convinced that gases do not con- 

 duct in any similar manner to raetals or electrolytes. 



In a paper published in the year 1849tj I have shown that 

 hydrogen or atmospheric air intensely heated, showed no sign 

 of conduction for voltaic electricity even when a battery of veiy 

 high intensity was employed. 



In the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Series of Faraday's 

 Experimental Researches, the line of demarcation between induc- 

 tion across a dielectric and electrolytic discharge is repeatedly 

 adverted to ; induction is regarded as an action of contiguous 

 particles, and as a state of polarization anterior to discharge, 

 whether disruptive, as in the case of dielectrics, or electrolytic, 

 as in electrolytes. See §§ 1164—1298—1345—1368, &c. 



Mr. Gassiot, in a paper published in the year 1844 J, has 

 shown that the static effects, or effects of tension, produced by 

 a voltaic batteiy, are in some direct ratio with the chemical 

 energies of the substances of which the battery is composed ; in 

 other words, that in a voltaic series, whatever increases the de- 

 composing power of the battery when the terminals are united 

 by an electrolyte, also increases the effects of tension produced 

 by it, when its terminals are separated by a dielectric. 



* From the Philosophical Transactions for 1852, part i. ; having been 

 received by the Royal Society January 7, and read April 1, 1852. 

 t Philosophical transactions, 1849, p. 66. % Ibid. 1844, p. 39. 



