[A] Philosophical Transactions, 1807, p. 42.

501.  A glass vessel had a platina plate fixed perpendicularly across it, so as to divide it into two cells:  a head of mica was fixed over it, so as to collect the gas it might evolve during experiments; then each cell, and the space beneath the mica, was filled with dilute sulphuric acid.  Two poles were provided, consisting each of a platina wire terminated by a plate of the same metal; each was fixed into a tube passing through its upper end by an air-tight joint, that it might be moveable, and yet that the gas evolved at it might be collected.  The tubes were filled with the acid, and one immersed in each cell.  Each platina pole was equal in surface to one side of the dividing plate in the middle glass vessel, and the whole might be considered as an arrangement between the poles of the battery of a humid decomposable conductor divided in the middle by the interposed platina diaphragm.  It was easy, when required, to draw one of the poles further up the tube, and then the platina diaphragm was no longer in the middle of the humid conductor.  But whether it were thus arranged at the middle, or towards one side, it always evolved a quantity of oxygen and hydrogen equal to that evolved by both the extreme plates[A].

[A] There are certain precautions, in this and such experiments, which can only be understood and guarded against by a knowledge of the phenomena to be described in the first part of the Sixth Series of these Researches.

502.  If the wires of a galvanometer be terminated by plates, and these be immersed in dilute acid, contained in a regularly formed rectangular glass trough, connected at each end with a voltaic battery by poles equal to the section of the fluid, a part of the electricity will pass through the instrument and cause a certain deflection.  And if the plates are always retained at the same distance from each other and from the sides of the trough, are always parallel to each other, and uniformly placed relative to the fluid, then, whether they are immersed near the middle of the decomposing solution, or at one end, still the instrument will indicate the same deflection, and consequently the same electric influence.

503.  It is very evident, that when the width of the decomposing conductor varies, as is always the case when mere wires or plates, as poles, are dipped into or are surrounded by solution, no constant expression can be given as to the action upon a single particle placed in the course of the current, nor any conclusion of use, relative to the supposed attractive or repulsive force of the poles, be drawn.  The force will vary as the distance from the pole varies; as the particle is directly between the poles, or more or less on one side; and even as it is nearer to or further from the sides of the containing vessels, or as the shape of the vessel itself varies; and, in fact, by making variations in the form of the arrangement, the force upon any single particle may be made to increase, or diminish, or remain constant, whilst the distance between the particle and the pole shall remain the same; or the force may be made to increase, or diminish, or remain constant, either as the distance increases or as it diminishes.