XX. Experimental researches in electricity.— fourth series

Abstract

380. It was during the progress of investigations relating to electro-chemical decomposition, which I still have to submit to the Royal Society, that I encountered effects due to a very general law of electric conduction not hitherto recognised; and though they prevented me from obtaining the condition I sought for, they afforded abundant compensation for the momentary disappointment, by the new and important interest which they gave to an extensive part of electrical science. 381. I was working with ice, and the solids resulting from the freezing of solutions, arranged either as barriers across a substance to be decomposed, or as the actual poles of a voltaic battery, that I might trace and catch certain elements in their transit, when I was suddenly stopped in my progress by finding that ice was a non-conductor of electricity; and that as soon as a thin film of it was interposed, in the circuit of a very powerful voltaic battery, the transmission of electricity was prevented, and all decomposition ceased.