“Indeed , it is the great beauty of our science, chemistry, that advancement in it, whether in a degree great or small, instead of exhausting the subjects of research, opens the doors to further and more abundant knowledge, overflowing with beauty and utility, to those who will be at the easy personal pains of undertaking its experimental investigation.” -M. Faraday 1833 from ‘Experimental researches in electricity’

in the second part of my series exploring the early history of electrochemistry and Michael Faraday's 'Experimental Researches in Electricity' I try to build up an understanding of oxidation and reduction from the ground up by following one of Faraday's favorite methods of investigation: starting with a simple observation, and asking questions through experiments until we come to some image of what's happening.