IN VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY AND ELECTRO-MAGNETISM. 
285 
7- In examining the conducting power of alcohol when placed between pla- 
tina discs connected with a powerful battery, I was at first surprised to find a 
gas given off at the negative pole, without the slightest appearance of anything 
being separated at the positive pole. After collecting a small portion of the 
gas, I found it to be pure olefiant gas. 
Now, alcohol being composed of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, in the pro¬ 
portions which constitute water and olefiant gas, it is obvious that water, with¬ 
out suffering decomposition, must have been separated at the positive pole. 
This is indeed what might have been expected. Water, being composed of 
oxygen and hydrogen, must have a greater tendency to the positive pole than 
olefiant gas, the component parts of which have both a decided tendency to 
the negative pole. When the alcohol is diluted, it becomes a better conductor, 
in consequence of its becoming more easily decomposed. The water with 
which it has been diluted does not suffer decomposition, but performs the same 
office with regard to alcohol that sulphuric does when mixed with water. 
8. It obviously follows from this view of conduction, that a liquid has a 
very confined limit to its conducting power, or, in other words, that a section 
of a liquid will only conduct a given quantity of electric influence. This was 
established by the following experiment. 
Exp. III. Having drawn out a glass tube in the middle, by means of a blow¬ 
pipe, and bent it into the shape of the letter U, as in fig. 2, I filled it with 
diluted acid. 
Discs of copper and zinc of the same diameter with the narrow part of the 
tube, and connected with the torsion galvanometer, were immersed at 2 and c, 
and the deflecting force ascertained. Having removed these plates, and sub¬ 
stituted others several times larger, very little increase of effect was observed. 
It appears from this experiment, that the water in the narrow part of the tube 
had been arranged in the definite order, and that an increase of metallic sur¬ 
face had very little effect in modifying the arrangement. 
9. If this view of conduction be correct, there can be no actual transfer of 
electricity along those substances which are called conductors, as in the case 
of common electricity; the whole of the effects depending on the definite ar¬ 
rangement of the molecules of the electric fluid, essentially belonging to the 
conducting substance. Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that the 
2 p 
MDCCCXXXII. 
