35 On the influence of certain substances 
possess this.property in the greatest perfection, acting on the perox- 
ide of hydrogen, when concentrated, with surprising energy. The 
decomposition is complete and instantaneous ; oxygen gas is evolved 
so rapidly as to produce a kind of explosion, and such an intense 
temperature is excited, that the glass tube in which the experiment 
is conducted becomes red hot. The reaction is very great even 
when the peroxide of hydrogen is diluted with water. The oxide 
of silver occasions a very perceptible effervescence when put inte 
water which contains only one fiftieth its bulk of oxygen. All the 
metallic oxides, which are decomposed by a red heat, such as those 
of gold, platinum, silver, and mercury, are reduced to the metallic 
state when they act upon the peroxide of hydrogen. This effect 
cannot be altogether ascribed to the caloric disengaged during the 
action ; for the oxide of silver suffers reduction when put into a very 
dilute solution of the peroxide, although the decomposition is not then 
attended by an appreciable rise of temperature.” 
~*In the works to which the author refers, more extensive papers 
may be found; but we have preferred referring to the above work, 
as more accessible to readers. Having seen no explanation of the 
phenomena above stated, and being induced, by the statements of 
our author, to believe that no satisfactory theory has been proposed, 
we have thought proper to offer the following considerations on the 
subject. That a meta] or a protoxide, when presented to a substance 
containing a large quantity of oxygen loosely combined, should re- 
ceive a portion of oxygen, at the expense of the other substance, 
will not excite the surprise of any chemist; but when we find one 
substance decomposing another, without uniting with any of the con- 
stituents of the latter, we recognise a wide departure from the ordi- 
nary phenomena of decomposition. Our invention is fairly put to 
the test, when, on placing the oxide of silver in the peroxide of hy- 
drogen, we see oxygen evolved, not by the fluid only, but by the sol- 
id oxide; and find that this last is reduced to the metallic state. 
ese, and other phenomena, are at variance with all our observa< 
tions, and are explicable we think, on no other principles, than those 
which we shall apply. Our rationale is founded on the doctrine of 
Sir H. Davy and Berzelius, that chemical affinity is the result of 
electrical agency ; a theory opposed but not refuted. 
‘When any metal is placed in the peroxide of hydrogen, a galvanic 
effect is produced. The hydrogen having less affinity for the excess 
