398 Sir Humphry Davy on the relations of 
elements. For instance, if we introduce the positive and 
negative poles from a very powerful Voltaic battery into the 
extremities of a basin filled with solution of muriate of lime, 
and place in the circuit different wires of platinum, every wire 
will possess a positive and negative pole, and there will be 
no division of the fluid into two parts, one positive, the 
other negative ; and when the two wires are withdrawn, 
they alone having been used, the electrical appearances im- 
mediately cease ; and metallic wires unconnected with the 
battery made to occupy their places, exhibit no electrical 
phenomena : and in all experiments of this kind, the well 
known phenomena of the developement of chlorine and 
oxygen and acid matter at the positive, and hydrogen, 
alkaline matter, &c. at the negative pole, takes place. 
Acid and alkaline matters, when perfectly dry and non- 
conducting, become on contact negative and positive ; as I 
have shown is the case with oxalic acid and lime ; but this 
effect is similar to that of glass and silk, and the results is a 
common electricity of tension. And when acids and alkalies 
combine, their union being apparently the result of the same 
attractive powers acting on the particles which would pro- 
duce their electrical relations as masses, they exhibit no 
phenomena of electro-motion ; and such phenomena, when 
they occur in combinations in which acids and alkalies unite, 
always depend upon the contact of the metal with the acid 
and alkaline matter, change of temperature, evaporation, &c. 
and never on the combination of the acid and alkali. 
As a different opinion has been lately started, on high 
authority,* I shall give the proofs of the truth of this my 
* That of M. Becquerel. 
