He also decomposed water, giving due recognition to the antecedent experiments of Van Troostwyk, Pearson, and Wollaston. [Sidenote: IDENTITY OF ELECTRICITIES.] In the paper which he drew up he compares these results with others made with electric discharges from an electric kite and with those of the torpedo and other electric fishes. He recapitulates the properties of magneto-electricity and the proofs now accumulating that it can decompose water. He drew up a schedule of the different effects which electricity can produce, and of the different sources of electricity, showing in tabular form how far each so-called kind of electricity had been found to produce each effect. The conclusion was that there is no philosophical difference between the different cases; since the phenomena produced by the different kinds of electricity differ not in their character but only in degree. “_Electricity, whatever may be its source, is identical in its nature._” On comparing the effects produced by different discharges, he concludes that “if the same absolute quantity[41] of electricity pass through the galvanometer, whatever may be its intensity, the deflecting force upon the magnetic needle is the same.” He was then able to go on to a quantitative comparison between the “quantity” of electricity from different sources, and came to the conclusion that both in magnetic deflection and in chemical force the current of electricity given by his standard battery for eight beats of his watch was equal to that of the friction machine evolved by thirty revolutions; further, that “the chemical power, like the magnetic force, is in direct proportion to the absolute quantity of electricity which passes.” [Sidenote: ELECTRO-CHEMICAL WORK.]