ON ELECTRO-CKEMICIL DECOMPOSITIOK, Q} 



Hie to alter this determination, and to publish (out of the 

 order I had intended) my'observations on the subject ef his 

 discussion. 



Mr. Anderson has supposed a difficulty in the explanation Mr. Apder- 

 of electro-chemical dffcom position, when the products are ^^^^ ^^j^^ 

 collected in separate receivers, connected by a metallic ivire. decompositioa 

 He has also stated, that Ritter affirms, when water is °^^'^^^^^;^^^^5* 

 decomposed in such an apparatus, the oxigen and hidrogen 

 must pass through the connecting wire in opposite direc- 

 tion. 



These statements are, I believe, by no means accurate ; This not more 

 there has not been more difficulty experienced in the ex- "iVan'^oxt^en 

 planation of the eKperin^ent described, than exists in the and hidrogen 



most simple case of electrical decoujposition, viz. The im- ^PP^'^""?^^" 

 ^ . . parately at a 



possibility of conceiving, how the same particle of water is great distanc* 

 at once acted on by wires which are remote from each other, mtnetube. 

 Oxigen and liidrogen are separately produced at the ex- 

 tremities of a tube furnished with gold wires, even when 

 the length of the tube exceeds three feet, and any hypo- 

 thesis, calculated to explain the phenomena in this experi- 

 ment, will also pxplain them under any other modification 

 of the apparatus. 



The apparatus described by Mr. Anderson as Ritter's Ritter»s opi- 

 Iirran2:.£ment (Journal, vol. XXX, plate 6, fig. 3,) \s not Ji^^'f^^^^^;^ 

 described in the paper to which he refers, (Journal, 4to energy, 

 series, vol. IV, p. 512.) nor is the opinion ascribed to 

 Ritter advanced in that paper, or in any other of his very 

 numerous and interesting writings, to which I have had ac- 

 cess. On the contrary, from the tenour of his observations, 

 published in the Bulletin des Sciences, Journal de Physique, 

 &c. (translations of the most important of which have ap- 

 peared in this Journal ;) it may be presumed his opinion 

 favoured the hypothesis of electric energy, recently' so ably 

 supported by Dr. Davy. 



Mr. Murray in the last edition of his System of Che- Mr. Murray's 



raistry, has mentioned Ritter's experiment, accompanied ^'^.^^o""* «* 

 , , ^ . ' ^ Ritter's ex- 



by some observations,ywhich appear to consider the perme- periment*. 



ability of th« connecting wire i^ecessary to the explunation 

 of the experiment. But this is not advanced by Mr. Mur- 

 ray as the opinion of Ritter ; it is couched in the terms of a 



conclu$,iop; 



