ON THE DECOMPOSITION OF IfATER. 89 



<' others; the extremity of the conneoting wire, for example, 

 *' in the tube, in wtiich the positive galvanic wire is in- 

 ** sertttd, being negative, and its other extremity, in the 

 *' tube in which the negative wire is inserted, being positive^ 

 *^ and therefore giving off' oxigen s corresponding to the 

 " hidrogen, which appears at that wire". 



These facts, ascertained by Mr. Murray, have likewise Munionedl 

 been mentioned in a late work of Mr. Ellis*, who gives the ^jj;j • 

 detail of another experiment, made by Mr. Murray, in 

 which the phenomena were rendered very obvious and strik- 

 ing. " The wires of the battery were made to p^ass through Another expe* 



*' glass tubes, and the tubes were then placed in two "f <="' f ^^'^* 



^ . . Murray s. 



** glasses, which were connected by the metallic arc. In- 



*• stead of water, however, both the tubes and glasses were 

 ** filled with an infusion of red rabbau,e, which held a 

 *' neutral salt in solution. As soon as the electricity was 

 *' put in motion, the neutral salt, in each tube and glass, 

 ** was decomposed ; and the effects were at once conspicuous 

 *• on the vegetable infusion. For on the side connected 

 ** with the positive end of the battery, the fluid in the 

 ** tube was reddened, while, in the glass of the same side 

 ** it was rendered green. On the contrary, the fluid in the 

 *' tube connected with the negative side was green, and in 

 *' the glass of the same side it was red. Hence decomposi- 

 ** tion had taken place on each side: and while the positive 

 •' pole of the battery attracted, as usual, the acid which 

 *' reddened the infusion in the tube of that side, the nega- 

 ** live extremity of the arc attracted the alkali in the glass 

 *' below, and changed its ^uid to a green : and by the op- 

 <' posite electricities of the respective wires, reverse effects 

 " were produced in the fluids of the tube and glass con- 

 *' nected with the negative side of the battery". 



Although it appears, that Mr. Murray had not only Mr. Ander- 

 suspected, but actually detected, the fallacy in Ritter's sofi'^ expeil- 

 experiment, long before the publication of Mr. Anderson's these. 

 essay, yet 1 am far fronj insinuating, that the latter gentle- 

 man was at all acquainted with what the former had done. 

 Indeed the train of thought, which seems to have suggested 



• farther Inquiries concerning Vegetation, .Ic-, p. l81. 



the 



