body capable of acting directly on the metal; and it also appears to be essential that these two should merge into one, or that the principle directly active on the metal by chemical action should be one of the ions of the electrolyte used. Whether the voltaic arrangement be excited by solution of acids, or alkalies, or sulphurets, or by fused substances (212), this principle has always hitherto, as far as I am aware, been an anion (678); and I anticipate, from a consideration of the principles of electric action, that it must of necessity be one of that class of bodies.
660. If the action of the sulphuric acid used in the voltaic circuit be considered, it will be found incompetent to produce any sensible portion of the electricity of the current by its combination with the oxide formed, for this simple reason, it is deficient in a most essential condition: it forms no part of an electrolyte, nor is it in relation with any other body present in the solution which will permit of the mutual transfer of the particles and the consequent transfer of the electricity. It is true, that as the plane at which the acid is dissolving the oxide of zinc formed by the action of the water is in contact with the metal zinc, there seems no difficulty in considering how the oxide there could communicate an electrical state, proportionate to its own chemical action on the acid, to the metal, which is a conductor without decomposition. But on the side of the acid there is no substance to complete the circuit: the water, as water, cannot conduct it, or at least only so small a proportion that it is merely an incidental and almost inappreciable effect (705); and it cannot conduct it as an electrolyte, because an electrolyte conducts in consequence of the mutual relation and action of its particles; and neither of the elements of the water, nor even the water itself, as far as we can perceive, are ions with respect to the sulphuric acid (583).[1]
661. This view of the secondary character of the sulphuric acid as an agent in the production of the voltaic current, is further confirmed by the fact, that the current generated and transmitted is directly and exactly proportional to the quantity of water decomposed and the quantity of zinc oxidised (603, 727), and is the same as that required to decompose the same quantity of water. As, therefore, the decomposition of the water shows that the electricity has passed by its means, there
- ↑ It will be seen that I here agree with Sir Humphry Davy, who has experimentally supported the opinion that acids and alkalies in combining do not produce any current of electricity.—Philosophical Transactions, 1826, p. 398.
