897.  It has been considered a difficult, and by some an impossible thing, to decompose bodies by the current from a single pair of plates, even when it was so powerful as to heat bars of metal red-hot, as in the case of Hare’s calorimeter, arranged as a single voltaic circuit, or of Wollaston’s powerful single pair of metals.  This difficulty has arisen altogether from the antagonism of the chemical affinity engaged in producing the current with the chemical affinity to be overcome, and depends entirely upon their relative intensity; for when the sum of forces in one has a certain degree of superiority over the sum of forces in the other, the former gain the ascendency, determine the current, and overcome the latter so as to make the substance exerting them yield up its elements in perfect accordance, both as to direction and quantity, with the course of those which are exerting the most intense and dominant action.

898.  Water has generally been the substance, the decomposition of which has been sought for as a chemical test of the passage of an electric current.  But I now began to perceive a reason for its failure, and for a fact which I had observed long before (315. 316.) with regard to the iodide of potassium, namely, that bodies would differ in facility of decomposition by a given electric current, according to the condition and intensity of their ordinary chemical affinities.  This reason appeared in their re-action upon the affinities tending to cause the current; and it appeared probable, that many substances might be found which could be decomposed by the current of a single pair of zinc and platina plates immersed in dilute sulphuric acid, although water resisted its action.  I soon found this to be the case, and as the experiments offer new and beautiful proofs of the direct relation and opposition of the chemical affinities concerned in producing and in resisting the stream of electricity, I shall briefly describe them.

899.  The arrangement of the apparatus was as in fig. 77.  The vessel v contained dilute sulphuric acid; Z and P are the zinc and platina plates; a, b, and c are platina wires; the decompositions were effected at x, and occasionally, indeed generally, a galvanometer was introduced into the circuit at g:  its place only is here given, the circle at g having no reference to the size of the instrument.  Various arrangements were made at x, according to the kind of decomposition to be effected.  If a drop of liquid was to be acted upon, the two ends were merely dipped into it; if a solution contained in the pores of paper was to be decomposed, one of the extremities was connected with a platina plate supporting the paper, whilst the other extremity rested on the paper, e, fig. 81:  or sometimes, as with sulphate of soda, a plate of platina sustained two portions of paper, one of the ends of the wires resting upon each piece, c, fig. 86.  The darts represent the direction of the electric current (667.).