316 Mr Connell on the Action of 



the voltaic pile, the poles employed being of platinum foil, and 

 approached to one another in an open vessel, gas was evolved 

 from the negative pole, whilst none whatever appeared from the 

 positive foil. A moderate voltaic power, such as a small battery 

 of fifty pairs of two-inch plates, was amply sufficient to produce 

 this effect. This experiment immediately recalled to my recol- 

 lection a statement made a year or two ago by Dr Ritchie,* that 

 when alcohol, not holding any substance in solution, was acted 

 on by a powerful galvanic battery, gas was evolved from the ne- 

 gative pole, whilst none appeared from the positive, and that the 

 gas thus evolved was olefiant gas ; on which idea Dr Ritchie con- 

 cluded that the alcohol had been resolved into olefiant gas and 

 water. As there was apparently a considerable analogy between 

 the two observations, I was naturally led to conjecture that the 

 gas evolved at the negative pole in my experiment, was olefiant 

 gas ; but an examination of it soon satisfied me that this was not 

 the case. The gas was collected simply by bringing the negative 

 foil under a tube filled with alcohol, holding about ,^ part of 

 potash in solution, and inverted in an evaporating basin con- 

 taining the same liquid ; the power employed being sometimes 

 fifty pairs of two-inch plates, and in other instances, seventy pairs 

 of four-inch plates. No gas was evolved from the positive pole. 

 A small portion of the gas collected from the negative pole was 

 mixed with three times its bulk of chlorine, and the mixture left 

 in a dark room over water. In the course of a few hours, an ab- 

 sorption had taken place to the amount of the chlorine employ- 

 ed, without the least appearance of the formation of oily matter : 

 and no farther absorption occurred in twenty-four hours. The 

 residual gas was inflammable. In short, the chlorine had left the 

 original gas unchanged, which was therefore not olefiant gas. I 

 then proceeded to examine it in the usual way in the voltaic 

 eudiometer, and, after repeated and careful trials, fully satisfied 



* Phil. Trans. 1832. 



