chemical Agencies of 'Electricity . 31 
sulphur is deposited, and the oxygene from the acid, and the 
hydrogene from the water are respectively repelled ; and a 
new combination produced. 
I have attempted some of the experiments of decomposition 
and transfer, by means of common electricity, making use of 
a powerful electrical machine of Mr. Nairne’s construction, 
belonging to the Royal Institution, of which the cylinder is 15 
inches in diameter, and 2 feet long. 
With the same apparatus as that employed for decomposi- 
tions by the Voltaic battery, no perceptible effect was pro- 
duced by passing a strong current of electricity silently for 
four hours through solution of sulphate of potash. 
But by employing fine platina points of ~~ of an inch in 
diameter, cemented in glass tubes in the manner contrived by 
Dr. Wollaston, *and bringing them near each other, in vessels 
containing from 3 to 4 grains of the solution, and connected 
by moist asbestus, potash appeared in less than two hours 
round the negatively electrified point, and sulphuric acid round 
the positive point. 
In a similar experiment sulphuric acid was transferred 
through moist asbestus into water ; so that there can be no 
doubt, that the principle of action is the same in common and 
the Voltaic electricity.'f 
* Phil. Trans. Vol. XCI. page 427. 
t This had been shewn, with regard to the decomposition of water, by Dr. Wol- 
laston’s important researches. — By carefully avoiding sparks, I have been able to 
obtain the two constituents in a separate state. In an experiment in which a fine platina 
point cemented in glass, and connected by a single wire with the positive conductor of 
this machine, was plunged in distilled water in an insulated state, and the electricity 
dissipated into the atmosphere by means of moistened filaments of cotton, oxygene 
gas, mixed with a little nitrogene gas, was produced ; and when the same apparatus 
was applied to the negative conductor hydrogene gas was evolved, and a minute 
