110 



IV. — 071 the Action of Voltaic Electricity on Pyroxylic Spirit, and Solutions in 

 Water, Alcohol, and Ether. By Arthur Connell, Esq. F. R. S. Ed. 



Read 20th March 1837. 



The following paper contains a continuation of the experiments on the ac- 

 tion of the voltaic pile on alcohol, and some other liquids, of which expemnents 

 a considerable number was described to the Royal Society in a former memoir.* 

 At present it is intended, in the first place, to shew the perfect analogy between 

 the electric action on pyi-oxylic spirit, and on alcohol, thereby confinning the in- 

 teresting analogy akeady known to exist between these fluids in other respects : 

 in the second place, to adduce a few farther illustrations of secondary voltaic ac- 

 tions in aqueous solutions ; in the thhd place, to examine the nature of the 

 changes produced in alcoholic solutions, under galvanic agency ; in the fourth 

 place, to inquire whether electric action does not throw light on the state in 

 which the haloid salts are dissolved by water ; and, lastly, to endeavour to sug- 

 gest as a general law, regulating the electric decomposition of solutions of binary 

 combinations of elementary substances in the principal solvents, that the dis- 

 solved body is not directly decomposed, but only the solvent, if itself an electro- 

 lyte. 



I. Voltaic Action on Pyroxylic Sijirit. 



Previous to the examination of this liquid by MM. Dumas and Peligot, ex- 

 periments had been made on it by several chemists, as by MM. Macaire and 

 Marcet, Dr Thomson, and others. The gaseous hydrate of meth3dene of Dumas 

 and Peligot, appears certainly to have been obtained, although in small quan- 

 tity, by Macaire and Marcet, by distilling pyi'oxylic spirit, with three parts of 

 sulphuric acid ; but they mistook its natm-e, supposing it to be protocarburetted 

 hydrogen, with a little hydrogen.f Still more important were the researches of 

 Dr Thomson, which led him distinctly to infer the existence of the carbohydro- 

 gen CH^ which may be viewed as substituted in the pyroxylic series for C' H* in 

 the alcohol series. By distilling a mixture of pyroxylic spirit and aqua regia, he 



* On the action of voltaic electricity on alcohol, ether, and aqueous solutions. Edinburgh Trans- 

 actions, vol. xiii. Part II. 



t Bib. Univer. xxiv. 128. 



