454. I endeavoured to apply this facility of transmitting the current of electricity through any length of a conductor, to an investigation of the transfer of the elements in a decomposing body, in contrary directions, towards the poles. The general form of apparatus used in these experiments has been already described (312. 316); and also a particular experiment (319.), in which, when a piece of litmus paper and a piece of turmeric paper were combined and moistened in solution of sulphate of soda, the point of the wire from the machine (representing the positive pole) put upon the litmus paper, and the receiving point from the discharging train (292. 316.), representing the negative pole, upon the turmeric paper, a very few turns of the machine sufficed to show the evolution of acid at the former, and alkali at the latter, exactly in the manner effected by a volta-electric current. 455. The pieces of litmus and turmeric paper were _now_ placed each upon a separate plate of glass, and connected by an insulated string four feet long, moistened in the same solution of sulphate of soda: the terminal decomposing wire points were placed upon the papers as before. On working the machine, the same evolution of acid and alkali appeared as in the former instance, and with equal readiness, notwithstanding that the places of their appearance were four feet apart from each other. Finally, a piece of string, seventy feet long, was used. It was insulated in the air by suspenders of silk, so that the electricity passed through its entire length: decomposition took place exactly as in former cases, alkali and acid appearing at the two extremities in their proper places. 456. Experiments were then made both with sulphate of soda and iodide of potassium, to ascertain if any diminution of decomposing effect was produced by such great extension as those just described of the moist conductor or body under decomposition; but whether the contact of the decomposing point connected with the discharging train was made with turmeric paper touching the prime conductor, or with other turmeric paper connected with it through the seventy feet of string, the spot of alkali for an equal number of turns of the machine had equal intensity of colour. The same results occurred at the other decomposing wire, whether the salt or the iodide were used; and it was fully proved that this great extension of the distance between the poles produced no effect whatever on the amount of decomposition, provided the same _quantity_ of electricity were passed in both cases (377.). 457. The negative point of the discharging train, the turmeric paper, and the string were then removed; the positive point was left resting upon the litmus paper, and the latter touched by a piece of moistened string held in the hand. A few turns of the machine evolved acid at the positive point as freely as before.