he sum of acting affinities in _v_ may
be increased by using other fluids than dilute sulphuric acid, in which
latter case, as I believe, it is merely the affinity of the zinc for the
oxygen already combined with hydrogen in the water that is exerted in
producing the electric current (919.): and when the affinities are so
increased, the view I am supporting leads to the conclusion, that bodies
which resisted in the preceding experiments would then be decomposed,
because of the increased difference between their affinities and the acting
affinities thus exalted. This expectation was fully confirmed in the
following manner.

906. A little nitric acid was added to the liquid in the vessel _r_, so as
to make a mixture which I shall call diluted nitro-sulphuric acid. On
repeating the experiments with this mixture, all the substances before
decomposed again gave way, and much more readily. But, besides that, many
which before resisted electrolyzation, now yielded up their elements. Thus,
solution of sulphate of soda, acted upon in the interstices of litmus and
turmeric paper, yielded acid at the _anode_ and alkali at the _cathode_;
solution of muriatic acid tinged by indigo yielded chlorine at the _anode_
and hydrogen at the _cathode_; solution of nitrate of silver yielded silver
at the _cathode_. Again, fused nitre and the fused iodide and chloride of
lead were decomposable by the current of this single pair of plates, though
they were not by the former (903.).

907. A solution of acetate of lead was apparently not decomposed by this
pair, nor did water acidulated by sulphuric acid seem at first to give way
(973.).

908. The increase of intensity or power of the current produced by a simple
voltaic circle, with the increase of the force of the chemical action at
the exciting place, is here sufficiently evident. But in order to place it
in a clearer point of view, and to show that the decomposing effect was not
at all dependent, in the latter cases, upon the mere capability of evolving
_more_ electricity, experiments were made in which the quantity evolved
could be increased without variation in the intensity of the exciting
cause. Thus the experiments in which dilute sulphuric acid was used (899.),
were repeated, using large plates of zinc and platina in the acid; but
still those bodies which resisted decomposition before, resisted it also
under these new circumstances. Then again, where nitro-sulphuric acid was
used (906.