104 
MR. GROVE ON THE GAS VOLTAIC BATTERY. 
ment 8, viz. a very feeble action for a few minutes, then a cessation, and no con- 
tinuous chemical action. 
Experiment 21. — For the same reason oxygen and nitrogen, with solution of sul- 
phate of ammonia, were tried ; this arrangement produced at first a slight effect upon 
the iodide, which soon ceased, and after several days there was no more rise of liquid 
in any cell of the closed circuit than in the detached cell ; the rise of liquid in both was 
very trifling indeed (about (TO! cubic inch), and had evidently nothing to do with vol- 
taic action. In this experiment, and in every experiment that I have tried, I have per- 
ceived a trifling action for the first few minutes. This I should have attributed to 
accidental causes, such as slight impurities in the gases, slight metallic deposits on 
the plates, &c., but that it is always in the direction which theory would indicate. 
Thus in the present experiment, the appearance of iodine indicated oxygen to have 
the same voltaic relation to nitrogen as it has to hydrogen. This temporary effect, 
therefore, appears to me analogous to that action called by continental experimental- 
ists polarization, an apparent tendency to action, i. e. an arrangement of molecules 
preliminary to electrolysis, but incapable of producing a continued current. In this 
and many other experiments with the gas battery I have observed this effect, but 
have never been able to produce any chemical change or electro-synthetic absorption 
of nitrogen. 
Experiment 22. — As oxalic acid when electrolysed evolves at the anode a mixture 
of oxygen and carbonic acid, and at the cathode hydrogen and carbonic oxide ; for 
the reasons above stated, I charged a gas battery with carbonic acid and carbonic 
oxide in the alternate tubes, and with oxalic acid as an electrolyte ; a slight effect was 
produced, the carbonic oxide being to the carbonic acid as hydrogen to oxygen ; but 
the current was evidently due to the atmospheric air in solution combining with the 
carbonic oxide ; this I proved by some of the test experiments before mentioned, 
which I need not recapitulate. 
Experiment 23. — Hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulphate of ammonia. This combina- 
tion also gave effects with which the nitrogen appeared to have nothing to do, this 
gas being perfectly unaffected ; I tried other experiments on this point, but they all 
led to the same conclusion, viz. that my idea of realizing a voltaic action by conver- 
sion of the ordinary effects of electrolysis was erroneous. It may be that the above 
gaseous products of electrolysis are secondary, and that water is the only electrolyte in 
these cases ; but for this, as for many other theoretical questions, there are so many 
arguments pro and con, that it is not worth while to dilate on them unless they can be 
shown to lead, or to be likely to lead, to some new valuable facts or natural relations. 
Reviewing the above experiments, it appears that chlorine and oxygen, on the one 
hand, and hydrogen and carbonic oxide, on the other, are the only gases which were 
decidedly capable of electro-synthetically combining so as to produce a voltaic cur- 
rent*. I should perhaps except olefiant gas, which appears to give rise to a conti- 
* See Postscript. 
