114 Mr. H.Wilde's Experimental Researches 



action of his gas battery presents to the electrochemical theory 

 of Grothuss, which makes the propagation of the current between 

 two electrodes dependent upon a series of decompositions and re- 

 compositions of the water through which the current is transmit- 

 ted *. Grove's objection to the theory is this : — In a single pair of 

 the gas battery we must, according to the theory of Grothuss, 

 suppose that oxygen and hydrogen in their separate states tear 

 asunder oxygen and hydrogen already united — the force which 

 produces the composition of water being in fact regarded by the 

 theory as sufficiently strong to overcome the force by which its 

 constituents are already held together. Grove also points out that 

 the gas battery presents cases in which, according to this theory, 

 a more feeble affinity overcomes a more powerful one, as when 

 water is the electrolyte, and binoxide of nitrogen and oxygen are 

 the gases. 



221. Now the action of the gas battery, while altogether inex- 

 plicable by the theory of Grothuss, is very simple when viewed 

 in connexion with the new results which I have obtained, and 

 with the dynamical theory of gases which has recently made 

 such advances through the labours of Joule, Clausius, and others. 

 For if free oxygen and hydrogen may now be looked upon merely 

 as the same ponderable matter, separated into molecules of greater 

 and less weight in a state of rapid motion, the lighter molecules 

 (hydrogen) moving at a much greater velocity than the heavier 

 molecules (oxygen), in order that equal volumes of these gases 

 may produce equal pressures, it is no longer surprising, now 

 that the influence which platinum exercises in inducing gaseous 

 combination is known, that the molecules of gas should be able 

 to communicate their motion to the comparatively inert mole- 

 cules of water which are in contact with the surface of the pla- 

 tinum, in a similar manner to that in which the translatory motion 

 of inelastic bodies is by collision transformed into the motion of 

 heat, that portion of the water extending between the electrodes 

 but not in immediate contact with them being not electrolyzed, 

 but simply completing the circuit in the same manner as an ordi- 

 nary metallic conductor. 



222. That the conclusions which I have arrived at respecting 

 the nature of water will escape the penalties usually visited upon 

 opinions which run counter to established ideas, whether true or 

 false, is hardly to be expected on a subject on which such strong 

 views are held as on the composition of water. But for the 

 benefit of those who, like myself, refuse to accept the explanation 

 of any phenomenon as being absolutely true, without first con- 

 sidering it in relation to the mind of the individual who essays to 

 interpret it, I will just observe that, in a critical examination of 



* Philosophical Magazine, S. 3. vol. xxvii. p. 348. 



