equence, that the use of electricity of
such intensity as that afforded by the machine, would, when applied to
effect and elucidate electro-chemical decomposition, show some new
conditions of that action, evolve new views of the internal arrangements
and changes of the substances under decomposition, and perhaps give
efficient powers over matter as yet undecomposed.

452. For the purpose of rendering the bearings of the different parts of
this series of researches more distinct, I shall divide it into several
heads.

P i. _New conditions of Electro-chemical Decomposition._

453. The tension of machine electricity causes it, however small in
quantity, to pass through any length of water, solutions, or other
substances classing with these as conductors, as fast as it can be
produced, and therefore, in relation to quantity, as fast as it could have
passed through much shorter portions of the same conducting substance. With
the voltaic battery the case is very different, and the passing current of
electricity supplied by it suffers serious diminution in any substance, by
considerable extension of its length, but especially in such bodies as
those mentioned above.

454. I endeavoured to apply this facility of transmitting the current of
electricity through any length of a conductor, to an investigation of the
transfer of the elements in a decomposing body, in contrary directions,
towards the poles. The general form of apparatus used in these experiments
has been already described (312. 316); and also a particular experiment
(319.), in which, when a piece of litmus paper and a piece of turmeric
paper were combined and moistened in solution of sulphate of soda, the
point of the wire from the machine (representing the positive pole) put
upon the litmus paper, and the receiving point from the discharging train
(292. 316.), representing the negative pole, upon the turmeric paper, a
very few turns of the machine sufficed to show the evolution of acid at the
former, and alkali at the latter, exactly in the manner effected by a
volta-electric current.

455. The pieces of litmus and turmeric paper were _now_ placed each upon a
separate plate of glass, and connected by an insulated string four feet
long, moistened in the same solution of sulphate of soda: the terminal
decomposing wire points were placed upon the papers as before. On working
the machine, the same evolution of acid and alkali appeared as in the
former instance, a