528. In comparing the difference of acid in A and B, the necessary equality of weight was considered as of no consequence, because the solution was at first neutral, and would not, therefore, affect the test liquids, and all the evolved acid would be in B, and the free alkali in A. The solution in A required 3.2 measures of the prepared acid (525.) to neutralize it, and the solution in B required also 3.2 measures of the soda solution (525.) to neutralize it. As the asbestus must have removed a little acid and alkali from the glasses, these quantities are by so much too small; and therefore it would appear that about a tenth of the acid originally in the vessel A had been transferred into B during the continuance of the electric action. 529. In another similar experiment, whilst a thirty-fifth part of the acid passed from _a_ to _b_; in the free acid vessels, between a tenth and an eleventh passed from A to B in the combined acid vessels. Other experiments of the same kind gave similar results. 530. The variation of electro-chemical decomposition, the transfer of elements and their accumulation at the poles, according as the substance submitted to action consists of particles opposed more or less in their chemical affinity, together with the consequent influence of the latter circumstances, are sufficiently obvious in these cases, where sulphuric acid is acted upon in the _same quantity_ by the _same_ electric current, but in one case opposed to the comparatively weak affinity of water for it, and in the other to the stronger one of soda. In the latter case the quantity transferred is from two and a half to three times what it is in the former; and it appears therefore very evident that the transfer is greatly dependent upon the mutual action of the particles of the decomposing bodies[A]. [A] See the note to (675.),--_Dec. 1838._ 531. In some of the experiments the acid from the vessels _a_ and _b_ was neutralized by ammonia, then evaporated to dryness, heated to redness, and the residue examined for sulphates. In these cases more sulphate was always obtained from _a_ than from _b_; showing that it had been impossible to exclude saline bases (derived from the asbestus, the glass, or perhaps impurities originally in the acid,) and that they had helped in transferring the acid into _b_. But the quantity was small, and the acid was principally transferred by relation to the water present.