206 ELECTRO CHEMISTRY. 



In the discoveries connected with electricity, we have 

 results of a more tangible character than are as yet con- 

 nected with the other physical forces ; and it does appear 

 that this science has advanced our knowledge of nature 

 and of the mysteries of creation far more extent 

 sively than any other department of purely experimental 

 inquiry. 



The phenomena of electro-chemical action are so 

 strange that we must return for a moment to the con- 

 sideration of the decomposition of water, and the 

 appearance of hydrogen at one pole, and of oxygen at 

 the other. It appears that some confusion of our ideas 

 has arisen from the views which have been received of 

 the atomic constitution of bodies. We have been 

 accustomed to regard water, to take that body as an 

 example of all, as a compound of two gases, hydrogen 

 and oxygen ; an equivalent, or one atom of the first, 

 united to an equivalent or one atom of the last, 

 forming one atom of water. This atom of water we 

 regard as infinitely small ; consequently a drop of water 

 is made up of many hundreds of these combined atoms, 

 and a pint of water of not less than 10,000 drops. Now, 

 if this pint of water is connected with the wires of 

 a galvanic battery, although their extremities may be 

 some inches apart, for every atom of oxygen liberated at 

 one pole, an atom of hydrogen is set free at the other. 

 It has been thought that an atom has undergone 

 decomposition at one point, its oxygen being torn from 

 it, and then there has arisen the difficulty of sending 

 the atom of hydrogen through all the combined atoms 

 of water across to the other pole. A series of decom- 

 positions and recompositions have been supposed to take 

 place, and the communication of effects from particle to 

 particle. 



An attracting power for one class of bodies has been 

 found in one pole, which is repellent to another class ; 

 and the reverse order has been detected at the opposite 



