350 Mr Connell on the Action of 



self, arising from the circumstance, that, when completely freed 

 from water, its points of fusion and decomposition are extremely 

 near one another. I freed it from water by keeping it in a 

 fused state, in a tube, for a considerable time after a portion of 

 the acid was decomposed, and until water was no longer evolved. 

 The residue was dry and hard, and was immediately transferred 

 to a long bent and narrow tube ; where platinum wires connected 

 with the two ends of a battery of fifty pairs of two-inch plates 

 were brought into contact with it, the before-mentioned galva- 

 nometer being also introduced into the circuit. The iodic acid 

 was then heated to fusion by a spirit-lamp, when immediately a 

 considerable and even permanent deflection of the needle took 

 place. Although it was thus quite manifest that a current passed, 

 it was impossible for me to say with certainty that the acid was 

 decomposed by the voltaic agency, because the heat applied was 

 itself sufficient to cause decomposition and volatilization of iodine 

 on both sides. 



I repeated Mr Faraday's experiment on fused boracic acid, 

 and at first thought that I had succeeded in decomposing it. 

 The acid was fused on platinum wire in the reducing flame of a 

 large lamp of melted tallow, acted on by a hydrostatic table 

 blowpipe, the voltaic power employed consisting of 216 pairs of 

 four-inch plates. There was an evident action on the galvano- 

 meter, and sparks were visible from the fused acid. Similar re- 

 sults were afterwards obtained with only thirty-six pairs of four- 

 inch plates. But, on repeating the experiment with the 216 

 pairs, and fusing the acid by the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, I was 

 surprised to find that there was no action on the galvanometer. 

 The idea which I then formed was, that the reducing action of 

 the carbonaceous vapour of the lamp flame had aided the voltaic 

 agency, but that in the oxyhydrogen flame, which is of course 

 destitute of carbonaceous matter, the voltaic current alone could 

 not produce the effect. This view, if well founded, would un- 

 doubtedly have been an example of voltaic agency, other affini- 



