] §2 ON GALVANISM AKD ELECTRICITY. 



alteration of alteration the plate* experience. I have noted down a mul- 

 »ie p ate*. titude of facts respecting the circumstances that increase or 

 diminish the activity of the pile, which would be sufficient 

 perhaps to form the basis of a theory in this respect. 

 Decomposition To return to my subject, from which I have wandered far, 

 o the salt. -^ ot Q ^ ( j oes ^ ftC ^ transferred in Pacchiani's experi- 

 ments correspond with that of the salt in ihe solution with 

 which the pasteboards are moistened; but the base, that 

 fixes the acid, is the same as that of the salt. If this base 

 be a fixed alkali, or an earth, it passes without being de- 

 composed : but if it be a metal, this is partly reduced by 

 the same cause as decomposes the acids with known radi- 

 cals, a id -is more difficult to be transferred. It is a singu- 

 lar effect of the galvanic current, to transfer substances so 

 combined with it, or rather with such great rapidity, that it 

 traverses with them substances for which they have the 

 greatest affinity, without leaving them power, or rather 

 Why light time to enter into combination with them. It is nearly as 

 does not heat j) ucar | a supposed in his, excellent paper on perfect jire, 

 that light traverses the air, or any other diaphanons medium, 

 without heating it, because it does not remain long enough 

 in a place to exert its calorific powers. The figure is suffi- 

 ciently just, but the cause assigned is false: this action of 

 traversing diminishes, but does not cease, when the current 

 is transmitted through an interposed substance, that is but 

 The current a semiconductor. What is farther singular is, that the same 

 transfers non- curren t transfers with more rapidity and facility substances 

 conductors . phi",, 



■with most ra- eminently insulating, as the sulphur of aikaline sulphured, 



pidity. ^e resins of ethereous and alcoholic tinctures, &c*. 1 first 



Substances observed and made known, not only that the alkali or earth of 

 that have the a muriate employed in the moistening solution will traverse 

 ■^prevented muriatic acid, or any other acid interposed to the current; 

 from exerting or that these acids will equally traverse an earthy oralkaliue 

 "f'the'eurr"" solution, interposed in the same manner, without entering 

 ' into combination with it ; but that the two principles of the salt 

 employed meet in thecourseofthe circulation without uniting, 



* If the current act me ■. hanically, and not chemically, it is not singu- 

 la*, but natural, that it si o ikl exert a greater impelling power on the 

 particles thut resist its course, than on those over which it glides «a- 



before 



