808.  The experiment was made thus.  Portions of the dilute sulphuric acid were put into three basins.  Three volta-electrometer tubes, of the form figg. 60. 62. were filled with the same acid, and one inverted in each basin (707.).  A zinc plate, connected with the positive end of a voltaic battery, was dipped into the first basin, forming the positive electrode there, the hydrogen, which was abundantly evolved from it by the direct action of the acid, being allowed to escape.  A copper plate, which dipped into the acid of the second basin, was connected with the negative electrode of the first basin; and a platina plate, which dipped into the acid of the third basin, was connected with the negative electrode of the second basin.  The negative electrode of the third basin was connected with a volta-electrometer (711.), and that with the negative end of the voltaic battery.

809.  Immediately that the circuit was complete, the electro-chemical action commenced in all the vessels.  The hydrogen still rose in, apparently, undiminished quantities from the positive zinc electrode in the first basin.  No oxygen was evolved at the positive copper electrode in the second basin, but a sulphate of copper was formed there; whilst in the third basin the positive platina electrode evolved pure oxygen gas, and was itself unaffected.  But in all the basins the hydrogen liberated at the negative platina electrodes was the same in quantity, and the same with the volume of hydrogen evolved in the volta-electrometer, showing that in all the vessels the current had decomposed an equal quantity of water.  In this trying case, therefore, the chemical action of electricity proved to be perfectly definite.

810.  A similar experiment was made with muriatic acid diluted with its bulk of water.  The three positive electrodes were zinc, silver, and platina; the first being able to separate and combine with the chlorine without the aid of the current; the second combining with the chlorine only after the current had set it free; and the third rejecting almost the whole of it.  The three negative electrodes were, as before, platina plates fixed within glass tubes.  In this experiment, as in the former, the quantity of hydrogen evolved at the cathodes was the same for all, and the same as the hydrogen evolved in the volta-electrometer.  I have already given my reasons for believing that in these experiments it is the muriatic acid which is directly decomposed by the electricity (764.); and the results prove that the quantities so decomposed are perfectly definite and proportionate to the quantity of electricity which has passed.

811.  In this experiment the chloride of silver formed in the second basin retarded the passage of the current of electricity, by virtue of the law of conduction before described (394.), so that it had to be cleaned off four or five times during the course of the experiment; but this caused no difference between the results of that vessel and the others.