3fl Mr. Davy's Theory. 



afford any support to the theory, nor does it appear to me to 

 offer a satisfactory explanation ; for in the first place, the sul- 

 phuric acid and the potash being placed in the galvanic circle 

 in a state of chemical union, it is not shown, nor is it easy ! 

 to conceive, how a state of electricity contrary to the natural 

 one should he induced in the acid and potash, rather than 

 that their natural electricities should be raised and their union 

 rendered stronger ; and secondly, supposing the change in 

 the electricities to have taken place, then the acid, having 

 become positive, ought, according to the true principles of 

 the theory, to unite with the potash which is become nega- 

 tive ; and this for precisely the same reason that they united 

 when the acid was negative and the potash positive. 



" I am inclined to think, however, that the true explanation 

 of the above-mentioned experiment is the following : The 

 positive and negative points of the battery act upon the 

 moistened sulphate of potash precisely in the same way 

 that any neutral salt would act, which might have the power 

 of decomposing it, the basis corresponding to the positive 

 side of the apparatus, and the acid to the negative. 

 i "Thus the basis of the neutral salt, which might be capa- 

 ble of decomposing the sulphate of potash, would be, like the 

 positive side of the apparatus, in a higher state of electricity 

 than the potash, and consequently would attract the sul- 

 phuric acid from it, and the acid of the same neutral salt 

 being also, like the negative side of the apparatus, in a higher 

 state of electricity than the sulphuric acid of the sulphate of 

 potash, would attract the potash, and two new salts would 

 thus be formed. 



f? It is thus, I conceive, that the decomposition of the 

 sulphate of potash in the experiment above mentioned is 

 effected by the galvanic apparatus ; for the negative side, being 

 in a higher state of electricity than the sulphuric acid, will 

 attract the potash ; and the positive side, being in a higher 

 state than the potash, will attract the sulphuric acid. 



* f Hence the reason that the sulphuric acid and the pot- 

 ash refuse to unite, though stated to be in opposite states of 

 electricity, and not because their natural states have been 

 changed j for the last reason is in direct contradiction to other 



facts 



