We shall afterwards discuss more fully these phenomena of dissociation, which were first discovered by Henri St. Claire Deville.
We will only remark that the products of decomposition re-combine with greater facility the nearer their temperature is to that at which dissociation begins, or, in other words, that the initial temperature of dissociation is near to the initial temperature of combination.
(b) The influence of an electric current, and of electricity in general, on the progress of chemical transformations is very similar to the influence of heat. The majority of compounds which conduct electricity are decomposed by the action of a galvanic current, and as there is great similarity in the conditions under which decomposition and combination proceed, combination often proceeds under the influence of electricity.
Electricity, like heat, must be regarded as a peculiar form of molecular motion, and all that refers to the influence of heat also refers to the phenomena produced by the action of an electrical current, with this difference, only that a substance can be separated into its component parts with much greater ease by electricity, since the process goes on at the ordinary temperature.
The most stable compounds may be decomposed by this means, and a most important fact is then observed—namely, that the component parts appear at the different poles of electrodes by which the current passes through the substance.
Those substances which appear at the positive pole (anode) are called ‘electro-negative,’ and those which appear at the negative pole (cathode, that in connection with the zinc of an ordinary galvanic battery) are called ‘electro-positive.’
The majority of non-metallic elements, such as chlorine, oxygen, &c., and also acids and substances analogous to them, belong to the first group, whilst the metals, hydrogen, and analogous products of decomposition appear at the negative pole.
Chemistry is indebted to the decomposition of compounds by the electric current for many most important discoveries.
Many elements have been discovered by this method, the most important being potassium and sodium. Lavoisier and the chemists of his time were not able to decompose the oxygen compounds of these metals, but Davy showed that they might be decomposed by an electric current, the metals sodium and potassium appearing at the negative pole.
Now that the dynamo gives the possibility of producing an electric current by the combustion of fuel, this method of Sir H. Davy is advantageously employed for obtaining metals, &c. on a large scale, for instance, sodium from fused caustic soda or chlorine from solutions of salt.
(c) Certain unstable compounds are also decomposed by the action of light. Photography is based on this property in certain substances (for instance, in the salts of silver). The mechanical energy of those vibrations which determine the phenomena of light is very small, and therefore only certain, and these generally unstable, compounds can be decomposed by light—at least under ordinary circumstances. But there is