in Magnetism and Electricity : 113 



feeble electric current were generated in any manner in a me- 

 tallic conductor extending between two aqueous spheres of pla- 

 netary dimensions, and if one of these spheres were surrounded 

 by an atmosphere of oxygen and the other sphere by an atmo- 

 sphere of hydrogen, then would the negative and positive elec- 

 trodes terminating the extended conductor transmute the oxygen 

 envelope of one sphere and the hydrogen envelope of the other 

 sphere into water. 



219. That the views which I have enunciated respecting the 

 transmutation of water into oxygen or into hydrogen, and the 

 new facts which I have adduced in support of them, should not 

 have been previously touched upon in some way, would indeed 

 have been surprising, considering the number of powerful intel- 

 lects which have been engaged in the field of electrochemical 

 science during the present century. Thus we find Davy, in the 

 course of some experiments on the electrolyzation of water in 

 contact with globules of mercury on which oxide was formed 

 without the apparent liberation of free hydrogen, suggesting the 

 same idea which I have been engaged in demonstrating, viz. that 

 water might be the ponderable basis of both oxygen and hydro- 

 gen*; but he hesitates to adopt so formidable a conclusion, as 

 in no other case could he obtain one gas without the correspond- 

 ing quantity of the other, or without some product into which 

 the other gas might be supposed to enter. Subsequent re- 

 searches on the power which hydrogen in the nascent state 

 has to combine with the oxides, have fully justified this suspense 

 of judgment. But in following up this speculation in the case 

 of the electrolyzation of water when the positive and negative 

 electrodes of the powerful battery of 2000 double plates of the 

 Royal Institution were plunged into separate vessels of water, 

 connexion between them being established through the human 

 body by inserting a finger in each vessel, this philosopher would 

 hardly seem to have been just to his original conception ; for 

 had he not attempted to account for the phenomena by the 

 theory of transfer, or been hampered with the hypothesis that 

 the liberation of the oxygen and hydrogen in the separate ves- 

 sels depended upon a series of decompositions and recomposi- 

 tions of the liquids extending all the way between the two elec- 

 trodes, no other conclusion could have been arrived at but that 

 which he hesitated to adopt. 



220. Another natural philosopher, whose researches would 

 seem to have led to results intimately connected with some of 

 those which I have obtained, is Mr. Grove, who has pointed out 

 in the most forcible manner an insuperable objection which the 



* Elements of Chemical Philosophy, by Sir Humphry Davy, LL.D., 1812, 

 vol. i. pp. 172, 485-438. 



Phil. Mag. S. 4. Vol. 36. No. 241. Aug. 1868. I 



