XXVIII. Experimental researches in electricity.—fifth series

Abstract

450. I Have in a recent series of these Researches (265.) proved (to my own satisfaction, at least,) the identity of electricities derived from different sources, and have especially dwelt upon the proofs of the sameness of those obtained by the use of the common electrical machine and of the voltaic battery. 451. The great distinction of the electricities obtained from these two sources is the very high tension to which the small quantity obtained by aid of the machine may be raised, and the enormous quantity (371. 376. ) in which that of comparatively low tension, supplied by the voltaic battery, may be procured; but as their actions, whether magnetical, chemical, or of any other nature, are essentially the same (360.), it appeared evident that we might reason from the former as to the manner of action of the latter; and it was to me a probable consequence, that the use of electricity of such intensity as that afforded by the machine, would, when applied to effect and elucidate electrochemical 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.