GENERAL REMARKS ON THE VOLTAIC BATTERY. 465 



of the current, and also the balanced state of the affinities at the places of excitation 

 and decomposition. In this way they add to the mass of evidence in favour of the 

 identity of the two ; for they demonstrate, as it were, the antagonism of the chemical 

 powers at the electromotive part with the chemical powers at the interposed parts ; 

 they show that the first are producing electric effects, and the second opposing them ; 

 they bring the two into direct relation ; they prove that either can determine the 

 other, thus making what appears to be cause and effect convertible, and thereby 

 demonstrating that both chemical and electrical action are merely two exhibitions of 

 one single agent or power (916. &c.). 



1032. It is quite evident that as water and other electrolytes can conduct elec- 

 tricity without suffering decomposition (986.), when the electricity is of sufficiently 

 low intensity, it may not be asserted as absolutely true in all cases, that whenever 

 electricity passes through an electrolyte, it produces a definite effect of decomposition. 

 But the quantity of electricity which can pass in a given time through an electrolyte 

 without causing decomposition, is so small as to bear no comparison to that required 

 in a case of very moderate decomposition ; and with electricity above the intensity 

 required for decomposition, I have found no sensible departure as yet from the law 

 of definite electrolytic action developed in the preceding series of these Researches 

 (783. &c.). 



1033. I cannot dismiss this division of the present Paper without making a re- 

 ference to the important experiments of M. Aug. De la Rive on the effects of inter- 

 posed plates*. As I have had occasion to consider such plates merely as giving rise 

 to new decompositions, and in that way only, causing obstruction to the passage of 

 the electric current, I was freed from the necessity of considering the peculiar effects 

 described by that philosopher. I was the more willing to avoid for the present 

 touching upon these, as I must at the same time have entered into the views of 

 Sir Humphry Davy upon the same subject-f-, and also those of Marianini:j: and 

 RiTTER^, which are connected with it. 



^ V. General Remarks on the active Voltaic Battery. 



1034. When the ordinary voltaic battery is brought into action, its very activity 

 produces certain effects, which re-act upon it, and cause serious deterioration of its 

 power. These render it an exceedingly inconstant instrument as to the quantity of 

 effect which it is capable of producing. They are already, in part, known and un- 

 derstood ; but as their importance, and that of certain other coincident results, will 

 be more evident by reference to the principles and experiments already stated and 



* Annales de Chimie, torn, xxviii. p. 190 ; and M^moires de Geneve. 



+ Philosophical Transactions, 1826, p. 413. 



X Annales de Chimie, torn, xxxiii. pp. 117, 119, &c. 



§ Journal de Physique, torn. Ivii. pp. 349, 350. 



