PEeouPosiTioN or water by GALTANISM. J 83 



not only that the spiral wire is the cause of motion in plants, 

 hat that the management of a plant is wholly mechanical. 



I am. Sir, 

 Your obliged Servant, 



AGNES IBBETSON. 



I shall in my next give some account of the form of those 

 i»es8ile leaves, which belong to annuals, and those which are 

 of the order pentandria digynia, as there are many curious 

 particulars, which belong to both, and which I have not at 

 present time to detail. 



On the Decomposition of Water in two or more separate Ves- 

 sett. In a Letter from Adam Anderson, Esq. 



To W. NICHOLSON, Esq. 

 SIR, 



X HOUGH the detection of erroneous statements in mat- Detections of 



ters of science is certainly a more humble task than the dis- «■"■■<*"" >n »eU 



covery or generalizement of facts, it must still be regarded ant. 



as contributing, at least in some degree, to the progress of 



true knowledge, in so far as erroneous views have a tendency, 



not only to supersede experimental investigation, but V> 



waste the energies of the mind in attempts to explain a 



•tate of things, which has no real existence in nature. I 



have been led to this remark, by reflecting on the difficulty, Difficulty in 



which chemists have hitherto experienced, to explain the explaining th« 



transmission of the elements of water, during the decom- composhionof 



position of that fluid by galvanism, when a metallic wire w="er in sepa- 



forms part of the circuit, and the experiment is performed ^ * ^"*^ ^' 



in separate receivers. 



I hare ascertained, beyond the possibility of doubt, that Oxigenand 



the transmission of oxigen and hidrogen in opposite cur- jj^^']^'^"^^" "o* 



rent»^t^hrough the connecting wire is, contrary to the as- ihiough the 



lertion of Ritter*, entirely fallacious—that the supposition "^."^ '" **??*** 



s'te currents. 



• Journal, 4to edition, vol. IV, p. 512. 



of 



