Voltaic Electricity on Alcohol, fyc. 353 



ficant morsel of potash caused the liberation of a comparatively 

 speaking abundant supply of elastic fluid, and that with a smaller 

 voltaic power. When only T ~ ? part of pure caustic potash 

 was dissolved in the alcohol of .790, and it was acted on in the 

 tube, Fig. 2, by seventy-two pairs of four-inch plates, the foils 

 being ~ of an inch apart, half a cubic inch of gas was collected 

 from the negative pole in ten minutes, and the evolution still 

 went on. This gas was found to be hydrogen as usual. But this 

 was by no means the limit to the operation of the alkali in giving 

 conducting power. With -g-iro °f potash in solution, this alco- 

 hol still gave a considerable stream of gas ; and when this solu- 

 tion was farther diluted with the same alcohol, so as to leave only 

 T o-.Voo- °^ P°tash dissolved, the stream from the negative pole, 

 with the power of seventy-two pairs, was scarcely diminished, and 

 much more abundant than that from the alcohol holding nothing 

 in solution, with the power of 216 pairs. The dilution might 

 evidently have been carried much farther without destroying the 

 effect of the alkali. Since alcohol of so low specific gravity thus 

 still yielded hydrogen from the negative pole, additional confir- 

 mation is evidently afforded of the views set forth in the preced- 

 ing paper, as to the intimate nature of alcohol and ether ; and it 

 appears to me that no reasonable doubt can any longer exist, 

 that the researches which have been detailed afford experimental 

 proof of the presence of water as a constituent in absolute alco- 

 hol, and of its absence in ether. 



The Figures referred to in the preceding paper are contained in Plate XIII. 



