100 Mr. H.Wilde's Experimental Researches 



ccived the inverted current from bridging across or making a 

 short metallic circuit between them and the plates in the vessel 

 Q, as, otherwise, deceptive results would have been obtained. 



172. When the commutator was at rest, but arranged so that 

 the zinc and platinum plates in Q should be in metallic communi- 

 cation with the electrodes in R, no liberation of gas appeared on 

 the platinum plates in either of the vessels. But on making the 

 commutator revolve at such a velocity that the current, after 

 leaving Q and before arriving at R, should be alternately in- 

 verted about 1000 times per minute, the whole surface of the 

 platinum plate in Q gradually became covered with bubbles of 

 hydrogen, which finally detached themselves from the plate and 

 escaped through the liquid in the same manner as when the same 

 pair of zinc and platinum plates were connected (without the inter- 

 vention of a commutator) with the double coil of wire immersed 

 in distilled water (149). 



173. The proof that the passage of an electric current through 

 the vessels Q and R was accompanied by the electrolyzation of 

 the liquid in Q was therefore full and complete. Now Faraday 

 has shown (Experimental Researches, 809, 991) that when several 

 electrolytic cells, containing the same dilute sulphuric acid, are 

 arranged in the same circuit, the amount of electrolytic action is 

 absolutely equal in each cell ; consequently whatever be the 

 amount of electrolytic action in the vessel Q, an equal amount 

 of the same kind of action, whether visible or invisible, must 

 inevitably take place in the vessel R. It is therefore demon- 

 strated, both by experiment and by the law of simultaneous 

 definite action, that the transmission of an electric current 

 through an electrolyte is invariably attended by the electrolyzation 

 of those sections of it which are in contact with the electrodes ; 

 and, consequently, without electrolyzation the passage of an electric 

 current from an electrode into an electrolyte does not occur (166). 



174. Before dismissing this part of my researches on the 

 transmission of electric currents through liquids contained in 

 insulated vessels, which have been made with the view of compa- 

 ring the results with those obtained with similar liquids when 

 forming part of the terrestrial bed, I must not omit to make 

 reference to the important discoveries of Ritter, Faraday, Grove, 

 De la Rive, and others, on the influence which metallic surfaces 

 exercise in producing gaseous combination, and of the secondary 

 currents attending such combination, all of which are connected 

 more or less intimately with the experiments which I have de- 

 scribed. To De la Rive especially belongs the merit of effecting 

 the transmission of a current through a liquid without any ap- 

 pearance of electrolyzation, by employing the current from a 

 voltaic battery of considerable intensity, alternated by means of 



