40 PRECIPITATION OF OXrDES BY THEIR OWN METALS. 



prising results, particularly with respect to cliemistry. Who 

 can forget the decomposition of water effected in a peculiar 

 manner, the oxidations, the disoxidalions, the hidrogena- 

 tions first accurately observed by Ritter, as well as the de- 

 coin[)Obition of several acids, salts, kc. ? We might have 

 hoped, that chemists would have paid more attention to 

 electricity, and that they would have endeavoured to derive 

 more advantage from it; but this has not been done in the 

 degree, which the importance of the subject appeared to 

 it-: influence ui demand. Ritter too has the merit of having pointed out to 

 nouKna '" " chemists the influence of the elevUic matter on chemical 

 phenomena : and though the opinions he started in his work 

 on the Electric System of Stibs/taiices may not be altoge- 

 ther accurite as to the effect of the electric matter iu che- 

 mical actions, yet we cannot vvlioUy deny its influence; i)ar- 

 P cripitations ticularly as Sylvester showed in IbOG, that the precipitation 

 01' metuU. of Qiiy laetal by another was nothing but a galvanico-e!ec- 

 trical process*; which confirmed the opinion expressed by 

 Ritter in 1800, though this opinion can be admitted only in 

 the case of metallic vegetations, and not for every sort of 

 reduction in the humid way ; because a chain of two metaf& 

 and a fluid is not always formed, when one metal is reduced 

 by another, and yet the result docs not remain a moment 

 doubtful. 

 In galvanic The influence of electricity in chemical processes, with 



vn-u\ IniX^i^o ^^9pet-'t to oxidation and disoxidation, is still more evident, 

 f;uidstheme when chains are formed with two fluids and one metal, at$ 



^"''''^''l^''^"^'^* Ritter observed in 1800; and the reality of which he dt- 

 ovvu oxide. _' •' , 



monstvated on the occasion of a remark I made in 18U4, 

 "i^"- that tin precipitated muriate of tin in a metallic form, 



when water was poured into a solution of muriate of tin, 

 and a Hip of this metal was imm^Msed in the solution und 

 the water at th>i same time. The utility and necessity of 

 studying tlie iiifiuence of electricity could never be showa 

 in a more determinate- manner, than in the case in which 

 Ritter has explained the most enigmatical phenomena in a 

 natural and easy manner. 1 have lately been more sensible 

 of the justice of this explanation, as 1 have coulirmed it by 



* See J'jurnai, vol. XIV, p, 94. 



ejiamining, 



