either can determine the other, thus making what appears to be cause
and effect convertible, and thereby demonstrating that both chemical and
electrical action are merely two exhibitions of one single agent or power
(916. &c.).

1032. It is quite evident, that as water and other electrolytes can conduct
electricity without suffering decomposition (986.), when the electricity is
of sufficiently low intensity, it may not be asserted as absolutely true in
all cases, that whenever electricity passes through an electrolyte, it
produces a definite effect of decomposition. But the quantity of
electricity which can pass in a given time through an electrolyte without
causing decomposition, is so small as to bear no comparison to that
required in a case of very moderate decomposition, and with electricity
above the intensity required for electrolyzation, I have found no sensible
departure as yet from the law of _definite electrolytic action_ developed
in the preceding series of these Researches (783. &c.).

1033. I cannot dismiss this division of the present Paper without making a
reference to the important experiments of M. Aug. De la Rive on the effects
of interposed plates[A]. As I have had occasion to consider such plates
merely as giving rise to new decompositions, and in that way only causing
obstruction to the passage of the electric current, I was freed from the
necessity of considering the peculiar effects described by that
philosopher. I was the more willing to avoid for the present touching upon
these, as I must at the same time have entered into the views of Sir
Humphry Davy upon the same subject[B] and also those of Marianini[C] and
Hitter[D], which are connected with it.

[A] Annales de Chimie, tom. xxviii. p 190; and Memoires de Geneve.

[B] Philosophical Transactions, 1826, p. 413.

[C] Annales de Chimie, tom. xxxiii. pp. 117, 119, &c.

[D] Journal de Physique, tom. lvii. pp. 319, 350.

P v. _General Remarks on the active Voltaic Battery._

1034. When the ordinary voltaic battery is brought into action, its very
activity produces certain effects, which re-act upon it, and cause serious
deterioration of its power. These render it an exceedingly inconstant
instrument as to the _quantity_ of effect which it is capable of producing.
They are already, in part, known and understood; but as their importance,
and that of certain other coincident results, will be more evident by
reference to the principle