LAWS OF ELECTROLYTIC CONDUCTION
consider these also as coming under subjection to the law, and assisting to prove its truth.
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In the preceding cases, except the first, the water is believed to be inactive; but to avoid any ambiguity arising from its presence, I sought for substances from which it should be absent altogether; and, taking advantage of the law of conduction[1] already developed, I soon found abundance, among which protochloride of tin was first subjected to decomposition in the following manner: A piece of platina wire had one extremity coiled up into a small knob, and having been carefully weighed, was sealed hermetically into a piece of bottle-glass tube, so that the knob should be at the bottom of the tube within (Fig. 9). The tube was suspended by a piece of platina wire, so that the heat of a spirit-lamp could be applied to it. Recently fused protochloride of tin was introduced in sufficient quantity to occupy, when melted, about one-half of the tube; the wire of the tube was connected with a volta-electrometer, which was itself connected with the negative end of a voltaic battery; and a platina wire connected with the positive end of the same battery was dipped into the fused chloride in the tube; being, however, so bent that it could not by any shake of the hand or apparatus touch the negative electrode at the bottom of the vessel. The whole arrangement is delineated in Fig. 10.
Under these circumstances the chloride of tin was decomposed: the chlorine evolved at the positive electrode formed
27
- ↑ [The law referred to asserts "the general assumption of conducting power by bodies as soon as they pass from the solid to the liquid state."]
