Voltaic Electricity on Alcohol, fyc. 325 



from pure alcohol, under powerful galvanic agency, and collected 

 over mercury, without discovering any carbonic acid in it. The 

 only secondary product I observed in that instance was a minute 

 quantity of resinous matter. 



Nor is it always easy to observe the formation of carbonic 

 acid, even where potash is present, when the galvanic action is 

 less energetic, from not placing the foils side by side, or from 

 using a smaller power. Thus, where alcohol .802, with W ± T of po- 

 tash, was acted on by thirty-six pair of four-inch plates in the 

 tube, Fig. 3, it was only after many hours' action that I got 

 traces of carbonate of potash, the liquid acquiring also a pale 

 yellow tint from the formation of resinous matter. It is in such 

 circumstances of energetic agency as those formerly mentioned* 

 that the true nature of the action is best seen. 



I formerly mentioned the occasional appearance of gas at the 

 positive pole, either when very dilute alcohol was acted on, or 

 under peculiar circumstances, when alcohol of greater strength 

 was employed. This gas I have assumed to be oxygen, from the 

 circumstance of its appearing most readily when the alcohol was 

 weakest, and from the whole bearing of the phenomena leading 

 to the conclusion, that water was the immediate subject of the 

 voltaic decomposition. My attempts to collect this gas proved 

 all unsuccessful. In a platinum vessel, although a little gas, as 

 already stated, was evolved from the positive pole, yet, in at- 

 tempting to make it pass up into a tube, the very fine stream was 

 gradually absorbed by the liquid, and nothing collected. I ex- 

 pected to be more successful by acting on alcohol of moderate 

 strength, containing a rather larger proportion of potash dissolv- 

 ed. Alcohol sp. gr. .838 at 60°, having T ^ of potash dissolved, 

 was acted on in the tube Fig. 4, the poles being platinum wire, 

 and the wire A made positive by a power, in one experiment of 



* Page 317-18 



Tt2 



