55 J 



V. Experimental Researches in Electricity/. — Sixth Series. By Michael Faraday, 

 D.C.L. F.R.S. Fullerian Prof. Chem. Royal Institution^ Corr. Memh. Royal and 

 Imp. Acadd. of Sciences, Paris, Petersburgh, Copenhagen, Berlin, ^c. 8^c. 



Received November 30, 1833, — Read January 11, 1834. 



§ 12. On the power of Metals and other Solids to induce the Combination of Gaseous 



Bodies. 



564. J- HE conclusion at which I have arrived in this section may seem to render 

 the whole of it unfit to form part of a series of researches in electricity ; since, re- 

 markable as the phenomena are, the power which produces them is not considered as 

 of an electric origin, otherwise than as all attraction of particles may have this 

 subtil agent for their common cause. But as the effects investigated arose out of 

 electrical researches, as they are directly connected with others which are of an elec- 

 tric nature, and must of necessity be understood and guarded against in a very exten- 

 sive series of electro-chemical decompositions (707-)? I have felt myself fully justified 

 in detailing them in this place. 



565. Believing that I had proved (by experiments hereafter to be described (705.),) 

 the constant and definite chemical action of a certain quantity of electricity, what- 

 ever its intensity might be, or however the circumstances of its transmission through 

 either the decomposing body or the more perfect conductors were varied, I endea- 

 voured upon that result to construct a new measuring instrument, which from its use 

 might be called, at least provisionally, a Voltar-electrometer (739.). 



566. During the course of the experiments made to render the instrument eflSicient, 

 I was occasionally surprised at observing a deficiency of the gases resulting from the 

 decompositions of water, and at last an actual disappearance of portions which had 

 been evolved, collected, and measured. The circumstances of the disappearance were 

 these. A glass tube, about twelve inches in length and f ths of an inch in diameter, 

 had two platina poles fixed into its upper, hermetically sealed, extremity : the poles, 

 where they passed through the glass, were of wire ; but terminated below in plates, 

 which were soldered to the wires with gold (Plate I. fig. 1.). The tube was filled with 

 dilute sulphuric acid, and inverted in a cup of the same fluid ; a voltaic battery was 

 connected with the two wires, and sufficient oxygen and hydrogen evolved to occupy 

 ^ths of the tube, or by the graduation 1 1 6 parts. On separating the tube from the 

 voltaic battery the volume of gas immediately began to diminish, and in about five 

 hours only 13^ parts remained, and these ultimately disappeared. 



