ON PYROXYLIC SPIRIT, &o. 123 



have since compared, in the same way, some other alcoholic and aqueous solu- 

 tions. Thus, absolute alcohol, containing ^o of dry nitrate of lime, was placed in 

 the bent tube A, Fig. 6, of former memoir, and water acidulated with A of sul- 

 phuric acid in the tubes and evaporating basin B, the positive pole of the one 

 solution, and the negative of the other, being in metallic connection. The cur- 

 rent from thirty-six pairs of 4-inch plates was passed through both solutions, 

 and in an hour and forty minutes there was collected from the negative pole of the 

 alcoholic solution .0375 of a cubic inch of hydrogen, and .039 from the negative 

 pole of the aqueous solution, lime appearing at the same time at the negative pole 

 of the alcoholic solution, and acid at the positive. The quantities of gas were thus 

 very small from the feeble conducting power of the solution, but sufficiently similar 

 in amount to shew that in both solutions water had been decomposed. The same 

 experiment was now made, substituting an alcoholic solution of -io of boracic acid 

 for the nitrate of lime solution, all other circumstances, including the voltaic 

 power, being the same. The conducting power of this alcoholic solution was still 

 more feeble than that of the other, insomuch so, that for some time I thought 

 there would not have been any sufficient action to afford room for a comparison ; 

 although when an alcoholic solution of boracic acid is acted on in a tube with 

 parallel platinum foil poles, the action is immediately seen. In three hours 

 the charge of the battery was renewed, and the whole left for eighteen hours 

 farther. No deposit was, during the whole time, formed on either foil in the boracic 

 solution, nor was any gas evolved from the positive pole in it. At the end of the 

 above mentioned time, there was collected from the negative pole in the alcoholic 

 solution .025 of a cubic inch, and from that in the aqueous solution .035. Thus 

 this result, from the very feeble conducting power of the solution, was much less 

 regular than in any former trial ; but still I think it will be admitted that it at 

 least does not interfere with the conclusion, that in this case, as was evident in 

 all the other cases, water was the subject of the voltaic agency ; and there were 

 no other appearances which indicated that boracic acid had been decomposed. 



It wiU I hope be granted from the various phenomena, which have been de- 

 scribed now and formerly, that when alcoholic solutions of acids, alkalies, and 

 oxyacid salts are submitted to voltaic agency, the water of the alcohol is the subject 

 of direct electric action, and that the dissolved body, with the exception of oxyacid 

 salts, is not decomposed. In regard to alcoholic solutions of haloid salts, how- 

 ever, it might perhaps be held from the electro-negative constituent actually ap- 

 pearing, at least in the case of iodides, at the positive pole, that it is really the 

 haloid salt which is directly decomposed, and that the definite quantity of hydrogen 

 at the negative pole, arises from the reaction of the metal of the decomposed haloid, 

 on the constituent water of the alcohol ; a view which, of course, would afford 



