Experimental Researches in Electricity. 97 



electro-chemical action might be drawn up, differing es- 

 sentially from each other; yet all agreeing with the state- 

 ment given of them in his celebrated Bakerian Lecture of 

 1806. Nor was this an indefinite assertion on Faraday's 

 part, for on being reproached by Davy's brother with in- 

 justice towards the memory of that great chemist, he ac- 

 tually produced twelve such schemes, and effectually esta- 

 blished the justice of his statement. 



In the larger number of the theories of electro-chemical 

 decomposition, the results are attributed to attractive and 

 repellant powers resident in the poles, or metallic termina- 

 tions of the battery; thus, for example, in the case of the 

 decomposition of water, the positive pole attracts the oxy- 

 gen, and repels the hydrogen, while the negative pole 

 attracts the hydrogen, and repels the oxygen. Not only 

 was the general fact of such polar actions assumed, but the 

 diminution of force according to distance from the central 

 points of attraction and repulsion, namely, the poles of the 

 battery, was considered experimentally determinable. 



Faraday's first step in the series of researches now under 

 analysis, is to prove that electro-chemical decomposition 

 does not depend on any direct attraction and repulsion of 

 the poles upon the elements of the substance, near or in 

 contact with them. " I have," he remarks, " in a recent 

 series of these researches proved (to my own satisfaction at 

 least) the identity of electricities derived from different 

 sources, and have especially dwelt upon the proof of the 

 sameness of those obtained by the use of the common electri- 

 cal machine and the voltaic battery. The great distinction 

 of the electricities obtained from these two sources, is the 

 very high tension to which the small quantity obtained by 

 the aid of the machine may be raised, and the enormous 

 quantity in which that of comparatively low tension, sup- 

 phed by the voltaic battery, may be procured ; but as their 

 action, whether magnetical, chemical, or of any other nature, 



o 



