82 W. G. Levison— Electrolytic Phenomena. 
When pure mercury is thus employed as the negative glob- 
ule under sodic sulphate, it becomes sodium amalgam, and th 
violent agitation which accompanies the repulsion of the globule 
on reversing the current is probably due to the rapid oxidation 
of the -_ ed sodium 
n, however, sulpburic acid is used as the electrolyte, the 
stobole sei only occlude hydrogen. Since in the latter case 
it acts in a somewhat similar manner, it is possible that hydro- 
gen is thus occluded, and from its rapid oxidation arises the 
agitation of the globule on reversing the current. e question 
might perhaps be decided by the Sprengel pum 
Two platinum electrodes ak ipa suspended near together 
in dilute hydric sulphate, will repeatedly attract each other, and 
at the moment of cuntact fall apart again, each separation being 
accompanied by a bright spark. T'wo plates of carbon deli- 
cately suspended are perceptibly attracted when they form the 
electrodes in dilute hydric sulphate or other electrolyte of a 
20-cell Bunsen battery. 
The attraction of solid electrodes may be due merely to the 
escape from them of gas bubbles, but the motion seems to be 
simultaneous with the closing of the circuit and to precede 
momentarily the evolution of ‘the gas. 
he currents in the electrolyte, to which most previous ob- 
servers have attributed the movements of the globules of mer- 
cury, may be beautifully shown by projection on a screen i 
a number of globules between the poles are held in depressions 
in the rubber bottom of an ordinary upright clamp cell. 
I have given a great deal of consideration to the phenomena 
described in this paper and to the views of those who have 
studied them, and though I am not able to give expression to 
the law by which they are governed, I can not accept any 
suggestion as yet advanced. I believe, however, that they offer 
the way to an important discovery, perhaps the ‘mode of trans- 
mission of the electric current, when the methods of exhibiting 
them herein described, the abnormal behavior of gas bubbles in 
the sodium amalgam battery, the movements of metals and 
alloys other than mercury itself, the transmission of globules 
across the voltaic field, the mode of measuring the attraction 
and repulsion unimpeded by capillary force, and the move- 
ments of solid electrodes, attract the attention of observers 
provided with recent facilities for experimentally examining 
them, and that the results may lead to the complete develop- 
ment of a series of phenomena that have long awaited inves- 
tigation. 
