Bodies not Electrolysable Alone 119

deavoured to prepare a perfectly anhydrous portion, but could
not spare the time required to procure an unexceptionable
result.

420. Nitric acid is a substance which I believe is not decom-
posed directly by the electric current. As I want the facts in
illustration of the distinction existing between primary and
secondary decomposition, I will merely refer to them in this
place (487).

421. That these mineral acids should confer facility of con-
duction and decomposition on water, is no proof that they are
competent to favour and suffer these actions in themselves.
Boracic acid does the same thing, though not decomposable.
M. de la Rive has pointed out that chlorine has this power also;
but being to us an elementary substance, it cannot be due to
its capability of suffering decomposition.

422. Chloride of stdphur does not conduct, nor is it decom-
posed. It consists of single proportionals of its elements, but
is not on that account an exception to the rule (414), which
does not affirm that all compounds of single proportionals of
elements are decomposable, but that such as are decomposable
are so constituted.

423. Protochlonde of phosphorus does not conduct nor become
decomposed.

424. Protochlonde of carbon does not conduct nor suffer
decomposition. In association with this substance, I submitted
the hydro-chloride of carbon from olefiant gas and chlorine to
the action of the electric current; but it also refused to conduct
or yield up its elements.

425. With regard to the exceptions (414), upon closer ex-
amination, some of them disappear. Chloride of antimony (a
compound of one proportional of antimony and one and a half
of chlorine) of recent preparation was put into a tube (fig. 28)
(524), and submitted when fused to the action of the current,
the positive electrode being of plumbago. No electricity passed,
and no appearance of decomposition was visible at first; but
when the positive and negative electrodes were brought very-
near each other in the chloride, then a feeble action occurred
and a feeble current passed. The effect altogether was so
small (although quite amenable to the law before given (130)),
and so unlike the decomposition and conduction occurring in
all the other cases, that I attribute it to the presence of a minute
quantity of water (for which this and many other chlorides have
strong attractions, producing hydrated chlorides), or perhapslieving that water was present, and that