52 'OJ' ELECTRO-CHEMICAL DECOMPOSITION. 



conclusion, which he has drawn himself. From these cfr- 

 cumstances I am induced to believe, Mr. Anderson has 

 taken his idea of this experiment from 'Mr, Murray's ac- 

 count, without examining the original paper; and has thus 

 associated the arrangement and opinion of Mr. Murray 

 with the name of Ritter. If I am wrong in this conjecture, 

 I am indebted to Mr. Anderson for my errour ; he has 

 fjuoled the same paper and page of this Journal, to which 

 Mr. Murray refers in his account ; and, on a careful pei'U- 

 sal of such paper, 1 find neither the experiment, nor the 

 opinion described. 

 Fittw's ex- The experiments of Ritter, to which the above quotation 



pertments. refers, are detailed in a letter from a correspondent of Dr. 

 Babington's ; they are stated rather cursorily, as " some 

 *' account of the Galvanic labours in Germany." The 

 lower part of an inverted si[)hon was filled with sulphuric 

 Oxigen and acid, and its legs with water. When subjected to the ac- 

 P^ir fopal^ilte *'*'" ^^ ^^^^ Voltaic apparatus, oxtgen appeared in one leg, 

 inves-K?!? con- hidrogen in the other. This result 1 have constantly ob- 

 ftu^rit'^ ^ tuined, and it is the same in all cases when two separate 

 mctalfic. vessels of water are connected by any Jiuid conductor not 



* metallic. 



Ritter from this experiment appears to have doubted the 

 composition of water ; he is said to have arranged an appa- 

 ratus, in which two portions of water, in separate tubes 

 connected by gold wire, evolved respectively oxigen with- 

 hiJirer'.'rd ""*^ '^'^'"o^en/ s"d hidrogen without oxigen. By employ- 

 to hi* obiair.e^l w^ one tube he is also said to have procured at pleasure 

 f'om'^tT'T i.^'"'" '^'^ ^^"^^ portion o/'ji^a/cr either oxigen gas a/on<r, or 

 \T;i;ir. ' hidrogen gas alone. This result I have never obtained; 

 TJiis rpsult the arrangement I employed is precisely that described in 

 »TJsuUk.';'^ '^^ *^*^ quarto Journal as Ritter's. Two gold wires are intro- 

 duced in the opposite ends of a glass tube, sulphuric acid 

 US poured into the tube till it rises above the point of the 

 lower wire-; the upper half of the tube is filled with water; 

 when this tube is placed in the circuit, it is said, that wire 

 only evolves gas which is surrounded by water, and that 

 this g-as is oxigen when the wire is connected with the posi- 

 tive tnd of the battery; and hidrogen, when its contact is 

 bui a mixture jnu(ie with the negative. In all my trials, both wires liber- 

 ated 



