706 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
filling up the hydrogen bonds than would be met by the new 
motion passing into the circuit. For, observe that the oxygen is 
negative and the hydrogen positive, and there would thus be the 
strong attraction that exists between a positive and a negative 
body (see par. 18), and further, as the hydrogen becomes more 
positive, the oxygen becomes more negative , for the oxygen has to 
make good the state of collapse which existed at the bond by 
the motion which previously existed in the atom, while the collapse 
of the hydrogen is made good by the current. After separation the 
hydrogen would, as a positive body, be repelled from the anode 
and attracted to the kathode ; the latter, being now more negative 
than the oxygen, would greedily absorb the excess of motion in the 
hydrogen, and pass it on into the circuit. The oxygen would 
remain at the anode until it received all the electricity of which it 
was deprived when it entered into combination with the hydrogen 
to form water, and the hydrogen would remain at the kathode till 
it had delivered up all the electricity of which it had deprived 
oxygen at that same time. Please observe that it is the electricity 
which H carries forward to the kathode which keeps the circuit 
going, and if H, as it does, carries more forward than it deprived 
O of, on their before-mentioned combination, 0 remains attached to 
the anode till it receives its due share, and H at the kathode till it 
parts with its excess, when they both come away in a neutral state. 
They are practically in touch with one another, for they are 
connected by a good conductor, and as soon as 0 receives its due 
share, and H parts with its due share, they are ousted by more 
needy and richer new-comers — in other words, by more negative and 
positive bodies. If by any possibility the ions could come away, 
some positively and some negatively charged, i.e. before they had 
completed the delivery of their charges at the electrodes, they 
would very soon thereafter, upon mixing with one another, re- 
adjust the balance. 
I particularly request that it will be observed that I base my 
explanation of electrolysis on the fact that one of the ions is 
positive and the other equally but oppositely negative. In any 
other liquid formed of simple bodies, such as mercury, or other 
molten metals, each increment of electricity, however small, 
provided a conducting path were open to it, would be conducted 
