308 KEPORT— 1886, 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Professors Armstrono and 

 Lodge (/Secreto-ies), Sir Wii/LiAJi Thomson, Lord Ratleigh, Pro- 

 fessors Schuster, Poynting, J. J. Thomson, Fitzgerald, Ceum 

 Brown, Ramsay, Frankland, Tilden, Hartley, McLeod, Carey 

 Foster, Roberts-Austen, Rucker, Reinold, and S. P. Thompson, 

 Captain Abney, Drs. Gladstone, Hopkinson, and Fleming, and 

 Messrs. W. N. Shaw, H. B. Dixon, J. T. Bottomley, W. Crookes, 

 Shelford Bidwell, and 3. Larmor, appointed for the purpose of 

 considering the subject of Electrolysis in its Physical and Che- 

 unical hearings. — Edited by Oliver Lodge, 



The members of the Committee have communicated with each other 

 by correspondence, and have individually undertaken the investigation of 

 various points more or less closely bearing on the subject, some of which 

 were specified by the present editor at the conclusion of a paper on 

 Electrolysis, printed in the annual volume for last year. (See page 765.) 



The sum of 20/. gi-auted to the Committee has been expended, partly 

 in providing chemicals and simple appliances for experiments, and partly 

 in printing and circulating various interim communications, to wit, letters 

 among the members and letters received from foreign philosophers. 



The work of the Committee is gi-eatly facilitated by being thus able 

 freely to communicate on matters of interest ; and, inasmuch as it is- 

 thought desirable to continue this practice, and also to experiment on 

 material of special purity, a somewhat larger grant is asked for this year. 

 Some of the woi'k undertaken by the members is only recently begun, 

 and not yet reported on, but that concerning which an account has been 

 communicated to the Committee is here appended, together with a few 

 abstracts and translations of foreign memoirs, which it seemed desirable to 

 bring together in an accessible form. (For Table of Contents, see p. 412.) 



Sir William Thomson communicates to the Committee Mr. Thomas Gray's paper 

 ' On the Electrolysis of Silver and of Copper, and the application of Electrolysis to 

 the Standardising; of Electric Current and Potential Meters,' as published in the 

 ' Philosophical Magazine ' for November 1886 ; and remarks that it treats of ques- 

 tions referred to in the rest of the Report, especially to those raised by Mr. Shaw 

 in Table IV. on p. 325. 



Professor Armstrong's paper ' On Electrolytic Conduction in relation to Molecular 

 Composition, Valency, and the Nature of Chemical Change : being an attempt to- 

 apply a theory of " llesidual Affinity," ' is published in the ' Proceedings of the 

 lloyal Society,' No. 243, 1886. 



Professor McLeod's paper ' On the Electrolysis of Aqueous Solutions of Sulphuric 

 Acid, with special reference to the forms of oxygen obtained,' is to be found in 

 the ' Journal of the Chemical Society' for August 1886, vol. xlix. 



Professor J. J. Thomson and Mr. Newall have been working at Cambridge on con- 

 duction through very bad conductors, such as olive oil, bisulphide of carbon, paraffin 

 oil, &c. They find that for electromotive forces up to 100 volts these conductors 

 obey Ohm's law. This result, they say, is interesting, since Quincke has lately proved 



