92 
ME. GROVE ON THE GAS VOLTAIC BATTERY. 
The effects, though clear and decisive in themselves, were further tested by coun- 
ter experiments, such as reversing the current by reversing the gases, &c. ; but these 
I need not here detail, as the electrical effects of the gas battery, when charged with 
oxygen and hydrogen, have since the publication of that paper been repeatedly veri- 
fied. I further stated, that when carbonic acid and nitrogen were substituted for 
oxygen and hydrogen, no voltaic effects were produced ; that oxygen and nitrogen 
produced no effects, but that hydrogen and nitrogen did produce a voltaic current, 
which I attributed to the combination, with the hydrogen, of the oxygen of atmo- 
spheric air in solution ; this opinion will be further tested in the following paper. 
The voltaic current generated by this battery I attributed to chemical synthesis, of 
an equal but opposite kind, in the alternate tubes, at the points where the liquid, gas, 
and platinum met, and the object of covering the platinum with the pulverulent de- 
posit*, was to increase the number of these points, the liquid being retained upon the 
surface of the platinum by capillary attraction. 
The point which appeared to me at that time as most important, was the beautiful 
instance of the correlation of natural forces exhibited by the fifth effect, in which gases 
by combining and becoming a liquid, transfer a force which is capable of decompo- 
sing a similar liquid, and causing its constituents to become gases; heat, chemical 
action and electricity being all blended and mutually dependent. 
The apparatus with which I made the above experiments being composed of some 
pieces of tubing which happened to be in my laboratory, did not enable me to attain 
any precise accuracy of measure as to the volumes of gases absorbed, or to prove that 
Faraday’s law of definite electrolysis finds no exception in the gas battery. Since 
that paper was written I have, after some failures, constructed apparatus by which 
I have been enabled to verify this law and to extend my researches into the nature 
of gaseous voltaic action. I have felt the more called on to multiply experiments on 
this subject, as a letter has been published on the gas battery, written by an electro- 
chemist for whose opinion I have much respect, which attributes its action to a cause 
different from that to which I assigned it. 
Soon after my original publication I received a letter from Dr. Sch<enbein, the 
substance of which has since appeared in print-f-. Dr. Sch(enbein there expresses 
an opinion, that in the gas battery oxygen does not immediately contribute to the 
production of the current, but that it is produced by the combination of hydrogen 
with water. I have recently heard a similar opinion to that of Dr. Schgenbein ex- 
pressed by other philosophers, but I must take the liberty of dissenting from it and 
of adhering to that which I expressed in my original paper. My grounds of dissent 
will be seen in some of the ensuing pages. 
In describing the apparatus used in the following experiments, I shall mention three 
forms of gas battery, with the first two of which my experiments were all performed ; 
* For the method of effecting this see Mr. Smee’s paper. Philosophical Magazine, April 1840. 
f Philosophical Magazine, March 1843, p. 105. 
