36 ON THE EXTRICATION OF THE ALKALIFIABLE METALS, 



Electrolytic Process. 



The peculiar mechanism of my apparatus, by which, in ten seconds, the acid 

 may be thrown on or off of the plates, enables the operator, within that time, 

 after a due arrangement of the poles is made, to put either or both of the 

 deflagrators in operation, or to suspend the action of either or both. This mode 

 of completing or breaking the circuit gives a great advantage in deflagrating 

 wires; or in the processes, wherein dry cyanides, phosphurets, or carburets 

 are to be exposed to voltaic action in vacuo, or in hydrogen. It enables us to 

 arrange every part of the apparatus so as to produce the best effect upon the 

 body to be acted upon, and then to cause a discharge of the highest intensity 

 of which the series is capable, by subjecting the plates to the acid previously 

 lying inactive in the adjoining trough. 



In the case in point, where a chloride was to be decomposed, the deflagrators 

 could be made to act through the same electrodes, either simultaneously or 

 alternately. Of these facilities I thus availed myself: 



Having supplied each deflagrator with a charge of diluted acid of one fourth 

 of the usual strength, I began with No. 1, and at the end of five minutes super- 

 seded it by putting No. 2 into operation. Mean while, having added to No. 1 

 as much more acid as at first, at the end of the second five minutes I super- 

 seded No. 2 by No. 1 ; and, in like manner, again superseded No. 1 by No. 2. 

 Having thus continued the alternate action of the deflagrators for about twenty 

 minutes, both were made to act upon the electrodes simultaneously, the balance 

 of acid requisite to complete the charge having been previously added. 



By these means the reaction was rendered more equable than it could become 

 in operating with one series more highly charged. Although, under such cir- 

 cumstances, the reaction may, at the outset, be sufiiciently powerful to produce 

 ignition, as I have often observed, after fifteen or twenty minutes it may be- 

 come too feeble in electrolyzing power to render the continuance of the process 

 in the slightest degree serviceable. Agreeably to my experience, as the ratio 

 of the calcium to the mercury increases, the amalgam formed becomes so much 

 more electro-positive as to balance the electro-negative influence of the voltaic 

 current. After reacting with one series of two hundred pairs, of one hundred 

 square inches each, for seventy minutes, I have found the proportion of calcium 

 to be only one six-hundredth of the amalgamated mass obtained. 



