I should like extremely to see water decomposed.
MRS. B.
I can gratify your curiosity by a much more easy process than the oxydation of charcoal or metals: the decomposition of water by these latter means takes up a great deal of time, and is attended with much trouble; for it is necessary that the charcoal or metal should be made red hot in a furnace, that the water should pass over them in a state of vapour, that the gas formed should be collected over the water-bath, &c. In short, it is a very complicated affair. But the same effect may be produced with the greatest facility, by the action of the Voltaic battery, which this will give me an opportunity of exhibiting.
CAROLINE.
I am very glad of that, for I longed to see the power of this apparatus in decomposing bodies.
MRS. B.
For this purpose I fill this piece of glass-tube ([Plate VIII.] fig. 1.) with water, and cork it up at both ends; through one of the corks I introduce that wire of the battery which conveys the positive electricity; and the wire which conveys the negative electricity is made to pass through the other cork, so that the two wires approach each other sufficiently near to give out their respective electricities.
Vol. I. p. 206
