ANOMALOUS ELECTRO-CHEMICAL EFFECTS. 385 



nary electrical machine was made to pass from fine points of 

 gold wire sealed into glass tubes and immersed in water, both 

 the positive and negative pole yielded mixed oxyhydrogen 

 gas, the exact proportions of which are not given. This expe- 

 riment has been subsequently discussed by Ritchie,* Faraday, f 

 and others ; but differing, as the decomposition in this case 

 does from electrolysis by the voltaic battery, I am not aware 

 that it has been repeated on a large scale, or that anything 

 more than a mere verification of the fact has been attempted. 



The apparatus constructed by M. Ruhmkorff, which I have 

 described in a paper in the ' Philosophical Magazine ' for De- 

 cember last, p. 500, having given me the means of procuring 

 electricity of tension in quantity far exceeding that of the best 

 electrical machine, and having my attention directed to Wol- 

 laston's experiment by the wires sealed in glass tubes which I 

 used for my recent experiments, I determined to make some 

 experiments similar to Wollaston's, but with the spark from 

 the secondary coil instead of that from the electrical machine. 



In the experiments which I am about to detail the ter- 

 minals of the secondary coil consisted of two wires of pla- 

 tinum, -g^th of an inch in diameter, sealed into glass tubes. 

 One of these coated wires was prepared on purpose for these 

 experiments ; and, having been carefully sealed into a glass 

 tube, the extremity was ground on a hone until the section of 

 wire formed one surface with the glass. 



The other coated wire had been similarly prepared, but 

 had been used for some time for the experiments in attenuated 

 gases, given in the paper to which I have alluded ; and the 

 extremity of the wire was worn beneath the surface of the 

 glass, a circumstance which proved of some little importance. J 



The tubes containing the platinum wires were curved in 

 form, something resembling the letter Z (see fig. i), the ex- 

 tremities immersed in a porcelain capsule containing the liquid 



* P/iil. Trans. 1832, p. 282. f Ibid. 1833, p. 23. 



| This result is important in another point of view than that relating to the 

 experiments in this paper, viz. it shows that even in the aurora borealis experi- 

 ment, or passage of the spark in highly rarefied gas, solid matter, even such as the 

 dense substance platinum, is given off ; thus favouring the theory that the spark 

 is ignited matter, and rendering the hypothesis of a fluid unnecessary for its 

 explanation. 



C C 



