Hare's JYeiv Galvanic Apparatus, Theory, &/-c. HI 



A piece of silvered paper about two inches square was 

 folded up, the metallic surface outward, and fastened into 

 vices affixed to the poles. Into each vice a wire was screw- 

 ed at the same time. The fluid generated by the apparatus 

 was not perceptibly conveyed by the silvered paper, as it 

 did not prevent the wires severally attached to the poles 

 from decomposing water or producing ignition by contact. 



In my memoir on my theory of galvanism I suggested, 

 that the decomposition of water, which Wollaston effected 

 by mechanical electricity, might not be the effect of divel- 

 lent attraction like those excited by the poles of a voltaic 

 pile, but of a mechanical concussion, as when wires are dis- 

 persed by the discharge of an electrical battery. In support 

 of that opinion I will now observe, that he could not pre- 

 vent hydrogen and oxygen from being extricated at each 

 wire, instead of hydrogen being given off only at one, and 

 oxygen at the other, as is invariably the case when the vol- 

 taic pile is employed. That learned and ingenious philoso- 

 pher, in concluding his account of this celebrated experi- 

 ment, says " but in fact the resemblance is not complete, 

 for in every way in which I have tried it, I observed each 

 wire gave out both oxygen and hydrogen gas, instead of 

 their being formed separately as by the electric pile." 



Is it not reasonable to suppose that an electrical shock 

 may dissipate any body into its elementary atoms, whether 

 simple or compound, so that no two particles would be left 

 together which can be separated by physical means. 



Looking over Singer's Electricity, a recent and most 

 able modern publication, I find that in the explosion of brass 

 wire by an electrical battery, the copper and zinc actually 

 separated. He says, page 186, " Brass wire is sometimes 

 decomposed by the charge ; the copper and zinc of which it 

 is formed being separated from each other, and appearing in 

 their distinct metallic colours." On the next page in the 

 same work, I find that the oxides of mercury and tin are 

 reduced by electrical discharges. " Introduce," says the 

 author, " some oxide of tin into a glass tube, so that when 

 the tube is laid horizontal, the oxide may cover about half 

 an inch of its lower internal surface. Place the tube on the 

 table of the universal discharger, and introduce the pointed 

 wires into its opposite ends, that the portion of oxide mav 

 lie between jbem. Pass several strong charges in succes- 



