106 Mr. H. W aide's Experimental Researches 



through a body of water 750 feet in length, a sufficient quantity 

 still remained to produce a brilliant electric light, and to melt 

 22 inches of iron wire *050 of an inch in diameter. With the 

 current of lower intensity from the 5-inch quantity-armature, 

 which melted at C, D 12 inches of iron wire "035 of an inch in 

 diameter when the two 750-feet lengths of conductor were ex- 

 tended in air, a sufficient quantity of the current still remained 

 to melt 7 inches of the same wire (-035 of an inch in diameter) 

 at C, D after it had traversed a body of water 750 feet in length. 



§ 4. On the Transmutable Nature of Water. 



189. In everything but the exhibition of the electrolytic pro- 

 ducts themselves, we have seen that all the phenomena attend- 

 ing the discharge of the electromotors through liquids contained 

 in insulated vessels were identical in kind with those exhibited 

 in similar liquids in contact with the earth, but with the remark- 

 able difference before treated upon, viz. that while in the former 

 case the electrolyzation of the liquids is dependent upon the 

 mutual action of the electrodes on each other through the inter- 

 vening electrolyte, in the latter case no mutual action of the elec- 

 trodes is necessary for the electrolyzation of these same liquids 

 when in contact with the terrestrial bed. Now the establish- 

 ment of this distinction between the two actions completely 

 overturns those electrochemical theories which make the trans- 

 mission of an electric current through an electrolyte dependent 

 upon a series of decompositions and recompositions of the liquid 

 extending all the way between the two electrodes. 



190. Nor is the phenomenon of the independent action of the 

 electrodes, when in contact with the terrestrial bed, less fatal to 

 the generally received doctrine of the atomic composition of 

 water than it is to the electrochemical theories above referred to. 

 For if the oxygen evolved at one electrode be independent of the 

 hydrogen evolved at the other, then would it appear that water 

 is the ponderable base of both oxygen and hydrogen, and might 

 therefore be transformed either into oxygen or into hydrogen 

 alone. 



191. Consequences of such vital importance to chemical 

 science as those which I have just indicated rendered it impera- 

 tively necessary that the fact of the evolution of the electrolytic 

 products at the electrodes in contact with the earth should not 

 rest on an inference only, so long as the proof was within the 

 reach of experiment. I therefore made an arrangement by 

 which the electricity in its passage into the earth should electro- 

 lyze the water in contact with it in a visible manner, and at the 

 same time enable me to collect the electrolytic products for the 

 purpose of examination. 



