The Correlation of Physical Forces (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 1. Into the bottom of a wineglass I cemented the bowl of a tobacco-pipe; into this was poured pure nitric acid, while muriatic acid was poured into the wine glass to the same level; in this latter acid two strips of gold-leaf were allowed to remain for an hour, at the end of which time they remained as bright as when first immersed. A gold wire was now made to touch the nitric acid and the extremity of one of the strips of gold-leaf; this was instantly dissolved, while the other strip remained intact. 2. The experiment was inverted, but offered some difficulty, as the gold would not remain an equally long time in the nitric acid, from the effect of the nitrous gas; enough, however, was ascertained to prove that to the gold in this acid contact made little or no difference; while the gold in the muriatic was always dissolved. 3. A platina arc was used for connection instead of gold; the effect was the same. 4. The outside of the pipe was coated with gold-leaf, leaving scarcely any part exposed; a strip was placed in the muriatic acid as before, and when contact was made with the nitric acid this strip was destroyed, while the coating of gold directly across the line of junction was unhurt. 5. The nitric acid was stained with a little tournesol; when contact was made, I could not see that the muriatic acid acquired any of the colour. 6. Nitrate of copper was used instead of nitric acid; the effect was the same, but took place more slowly, and I could detect no precipitation on the negative metal. 7. I now made gold-leaf in muriatic acid the electrodes of a single pair of voltaic metals; the acid was decomposed and the positive electrode was dissolved. From all this I think we may pronounce the action to be as follows: as soon as the electric current is esta...