Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/227

Rh The theory of chemical action was first advanced by Fabroni, Wol- laston, and Parret ; and has been since farther developed by Oersted, Becquerel, De la Rive, Ritchie, Pouillet, Schonbein, and others. The author of the present paper, having examined this question by the evidence afforded by the results of definite electro-chemical action, soon acquired the conviction of the truth of the latter of these theories, and has expressed this opinion in his paper, pub- lished in the Philosophical Transactions for 1 834.

The author, after stating the fundamental doctrine laid down by Volta, proceeds to give an account of various modifications in the theory introduced by subsequent philosophers ; and also of different variations in the views of those who, in the main, have adopted the chemical theory. Being desirous of collecting further and more decisive evidences on this important subject, he engaged in the series of experimental researches which are detailed in the present memoir.

It is assumed, he observes, by the advocates of the contact theory, that although the metals exert powerful electromotive forces at their points of mutual contact, yet in every complete metallic circuit, whatever be the order or arrangement of the metals which compose it, these forces are so exactly balanced as to prevent the existence of any current ; but that, on the other hand, fluid conductors, or electrolytes, either exert no electromotive force at their place of contact with the metals, or, if they do exert such a power, the forces called into play in the complete circuit are not subject to the same law of compensation as obtains with circuits wholly composed of metallic bodies. The author successfully combats this doctrine, by bringing forward a great number of instances, where certain fluids, which have no chemical action on the metals with which they were associated in the circuit, are in themselves such good conductors of electricity, as to render evident any current which could have arisen from the contact of the metals, either with each other or with the fluid ; the evidence of their possessing this conducting power being their capability of transmitting a feeble thermo-electric current from a pair of plates of antimony and bismuth. The following he found to be fluids possessing this property in a high degree ; namely, a solution of sulphuret of potassium, yellow anhydrous nitrous acid mixed with nearly an equal volume of water, very strong red nitric acid, and a mixture of one volume of strong acid with two volumes of water. By employing the solution of sulphuret of potassium as an electrolyte of good conducting power, but chemically inactive with reference to either iron or potassium ; and associating it with these metals in a circuit, formed by two test-glasses containing the solution, into one of which was immersed a plate of platina and a plate of iron, and in the other two plates of platina ; and the circuit being completed by wires of the same metals respectively, joining the iron-plate in the first glass with one of the platina-plates in the second, while the other two platina-plates were united by platina wires, interrupted at one part by a short iron wire which joined their ends it was found by the test of an interposed galva-