] g^ ON GALVANISM AND ELECTRICITY. 



or the alkali stance of the interposed pieces, and that of the alkali to the 

 from me glass, decomposition of* the glass; though the experiment, however 

 long continued, does not cease to f Ornish the same acid and 

 alkali, provided the activity of the pile be not diminished 

 by the oxidation of one of the plates; which, as I have al- 

 ready said, appears to be the determining agent of the de- 

 composition of the impregnating salt; and though the glass, 

 into which the acid is received, loses nothing cf its polish? 



Beth are pro- Besides, the production of an acid and alkali equally takes 

 «iuced without i • i- !■ c a i r j *. i 



the . e place, it we use wires or slips ot metal tor conductors, and 



but not with- a ufetal vessel for a receiver: and it does not take place at 

 out a saline so- ^11, if we operate with pure water instead of muriates, whe- 

 ther we use animal or metallic substances to conduct the 

 current, and receive the acid in glass or in metal. 

 GirtarirJer's Since the pretended decomposition of water into muriatic 



liypotnesis, nc \ ( \ bv the pile, the opinion of Givfanner has been revived, 



that hidrnjjen . . 



is evolved from which I controverted in the 1st volume of the Memoirs of 



muriatic acid tne Institute, and according to which the hidrogen, evolved 

 on dissolving a . . a . . ..... 



metal, m solutions or metals by the muriatic acid, is 6aid to come 



Pacchiani 1 ?, from the acid, and not from the water. But if, according to 



that water is t ]-, e asser tion of Pacchiani, " water be superoxigenated mu- 



zed muriatic rialic acid, or oxi muriatic acid with the addition of a fresh 



acid - quantity of oxigen," still it would be this fluid, and not the 



acid, that must yield the oxigen ; for, according to every law 



of affinity, it is the last portion of a principle combined, or 



its supercombined part, that separates first, being retained 



by a less poweiful attraction. 



The pile ] n galvanic experiments great care is always taken, to in- 



shoiild not be , , .. . ~ . . 'if. 



insulated. sulate the pile, as it this apparatus, composed ot a negative 



and a positive part, or a succession of su; faces alternately 

 charged and discharged, were not, like every other electrified 

 substance, the natural conservator of its own charge. Be- 

 sides, the pile is not only incapable of losing any pit of its 

 fluid by communication with the ground, but its charge, 

 which arises spontaneously, or without foreign accumulation, 

 does not destroy itself on forming a communication between 

 its surfaces, or opposite poles. Jn the charge of a body not 

 insulated by itself, as a conductor, it must be insulated from. 

 the Earth, from which the fluid is extracted, and to which it 

 has a tendency to return. In that of a bcUle, plate of glass, 



