W. G. Levison—Electrolytic Phenomena. 29 
fore the furnace of the body. According to the usual modern 
view, oxygen is taken into the bluod, is carried to the tissues, 
burns there on the spot the waste, and the products of combus- 
tion are then carried to be eliminated in the lungs. The old 
view is right in supposing that waste is carried in the blood, 
ut wrong in supposing it to be combustible and therefore 
burned as soon as it meets oxygen in the lungs. The modern 
view is right in supposing that combustion takes place mainly 
in the tissues and not in the lungs, but wrong in supposing 
that it is the unprepared waste which is there burned. 
Art. V.—On Electrolytic Phenomena; by WALLACE GOOLD 
LEVISON. 
[Abstract of a paper read before the New York Academy of Sciences, February 
10, 1879. 
In 1866 I devised a battery in which the usual plate of zine 
or other electro-positive metal is replaced by a surface of liquid 
sodium or potassium amalgam. It differs from any such bat- 
tery to my knowledge previously constructed, in that the amal- 
gam is perfectly fluid and its surface visible. It may be made 
in two forms. 
i. 
very strong current. When several cells of the latter form are 
combined, on making or breaking circuit, a motion of the 
