] See there how
beautifully we can get our results!
You see we have here drawn something, which we have not known about
before, out of this solution. Let us now take that flask from Mr.
Andersen's hands, and see what we can draw out of that. This, you know, is
a liquid which we have just made up from copper and nitric acid, whilst
our other experiments were in hand; and though I am making this experiment
very hastily, and may bungle a little, yet I prefer to let you see what I
do rather than prepare it beforehand.
Now, see what happens. These two platinum-plates are the two ends (or I
will make them so immediately) of this apparatus; and I am about to put
them in contact with that solution just as we did a moment ago on the
paper. It does not matter to us whether the solution be on the paper or
whether it be in the jar, so long as we bring the ends of the apparatus to
it. If I put the two platinums in by themselves, they come out as clean
and as white as they go in [inserting them into the fluid without
connecting them with the battery]; but when we take the power and lay that
on [the platinums were connected with the battery and again dipped into
the solution], this, you see [exhibiting one of the platinums], is at once
turned into copper, as it were: it has become like a plate of copper; and
that [exhibiting the other piece of platinum] has come out quite clean.
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