96 
MR. GROVE ON THE ELECTRO-CHEMICAL POLARITY OF GASES. 
2nd and 3i’d, where either the positive or negative terminal can be made either 
to oxidate or reduce, according to the nature of the chemical medium present, while 
these experiments are entirely in accordance with, and the results of them flow as a 
necessary consequence of, the view first advanced. The other theory which may be 
advanced is, that by dielectric induction the gases may be bodily separated, a layer, 
not molecular, but corporeal or voluminous, if I maybe allowed these expressions, of 
oxygen being developed on the side next the anode, and one of hydrogen next the 
cathode, the gas intervening between the terminals being thus divided, as it were, 
into two halves: this would certainly be a most curious phenomenon, but I believe 
it to be so inconsistent with the vast mass of accumulated facts in electrical science, 
and likely to have produced in cosmical phenomena so many results which, if exist- 
ing, must long ere this have been detected, that I will not do more than advert 
to it. 
I have adopted the views which I have first stated as being the least removed from 
ordinary theories or modes of regarding electrical phenomena, and because in the 
present instance I can present the phenomena in no other way which is in the least 
degree satisfactory to my own mind, while this view to me well accounts for them. 
Assuming then for the present this view, we get a close approximation, I may say an 
identity of the state of polarization in gaseous non-conducting dielectrics, and in 
electrolytes anterior respectively to discharge or to electrolysis. 
Faraday observes. Experimental Researches, 1164, “ In an electrolyte induction is 
the first state, and decomposition the second.” My present experiments show, I 
believe, that in induction across gaseous dielectrics there is a commencement, so to 
speak, of decomposition, a polar arrangement not merely of the molecules, irre- 
spective of their chemical characters, but a chemical alternation of their forces, the 
electro-negative element being determined or directed, though not travelling in one 
direction, and the electro-positive in the opposite direction. 
This arrangement is only evidenced at present, as it is in electrolysis, by the action 
at the polar extremities or termini of the dielectric ; possibly future reasearches may 
show, by the action of polarized light, by magnetism or some other means of analysis, 
that the polarity extends, as we theoretically believe it does, through the whole in- 
tervening matter. 
In the Experiment No. 5 with oxygen and excess of nitrogen, reduction takes 
place by the effect of negative electricity and heat, at least there seems every reason 
from analogy to believe that the effect of the nitrogen is only negative, protecting the 
plate from oxygen, or at furthest catalytic, aiding the reduction as sulphuric acid aids 
the electrolysis of water. Upon the state of association of the gases in what is gene- 
rally called mixture, I venture an opinion with the greatest diffidence. I have always 
inclined to the opinion that the difference between physical admixture, as it is termed, 
of gases and chemical union, is one of degree, and the views of Dalton ever pre- 
sented to my mind grave difl&culties*. My present results seem to me in favour of 
* Philosophical Transactions, 1843, p. 112. 
