508 JMr. Grove on the Electro-chemical Polarity of Gases. 



the electrodes in gas would be polarized as the electrodes in 

 liquid ai'C. The discharge now takes ])lace, by which the super- 

 ficial termini of metal or of oxide, as the case may be, are highly 

 ignited or brought into a state of chemical exaltation at which 

 their affinities can act ; the anode thus becomes oxidated, and 

 the cathode, if an oxide, reduced. I have elsewhere* shown 

 strong reasons for assuming that the electric or voltaic discharge, 

 the moment polarity is subverted, may be regarded as an in- 

 tensely heated state of the electrodes, and of the intermedium 

 across which it passes ; and my present explanation is perfectly 

 consistent witli, and derivable from, my previous views of the 

 disruptive discharge. 



Two other theories might be proposed to account for the phfe- 

 nomena I am considering ; the one, that the disruptive discharge 

 itself is analogous to the electrolytic, and that the oxygen and 

 hydrogen are reciprocally transferred by the discharge itself; 

 this would not, I think, be consistent with the generally known 

 facts connected with the discharge, and is entirely ineff"ectual in 

 explaining the Experiments 2 and 3, where cither the posi- 

 tive or negative terminal can be made either to oxidate or reduce, 

 according to the nature of the chemical medium present, while 

 these experiments are entirely in accordance with, and the results 

 of them flow as a necessary consequence of, the view first ad- 

 vanced. The other theory which may be advanced is, that by 

 dielectric induction the gases may be bodily separated, a layer, 

 not molecular, but corporeal or volumiirous, if I may be allowed 

 these expressions, of oxygen being developed on the side next 

 the anode, and one of hydrogen next the cathode, the gas inter- 

 vening between the terminals being thus divided, as it were, into 

 two halves : this would certainly be a most curious phrcnomenon, 

 but I believe it to be so inconsistent with the vast mass of accu- 

 mulated facts in electrical science, and likely to have produced 

 in cosmical phsenomena so many resvdts which, if existing, m.ust 

 long ere this have been detected, that I will not do more than 

 advert to it. 



I have adopted the views which I have first stated as being 

 the least removed from ordinary theories or modes of regarding 

 electrical phsenomena, and because in the present instance I can 

 present the phajnomena in no other way which is in the least 

 degree satisfactory to my own mind, while this view to me well 

 accounts for them. Assuming then for the present this view, 

 we get a close approximation, 1 may say an identity of the state 

 of polarization in gaseous non-conducting dielectrics, and in 

 electrolytes anterior respectively to discharge or to electrolysis. 



* Philosophical Transactions, 1847, pp. 10, 16,21. Correlation of Phy- 

 sical Forces, p. 50, 2nd edition. 



