ANALYSIS OF THE GALVANIC PILE. J\J 



The pile may be considered as divided into ternary groups Arrangement 

 under three different aspects.— 1. Zinc and silver and wet ternar/eroups. 

 cloth placed between them. — 2. Zinc and silver in mutual 

 contact with the wet cloth on the side of zinc. — 3. Zinc and 

 silver, still in mutual contact, but the wet cloth on the side 

 of silver. On this, two questions arose in my mind ; first, 

 to which of these ternary groups are -owing the accumulation 

 of the electric fluid on one side of the pile, and increase of 

 its deficiency on the other, which become greater with the 

 number of these groups ? Second, what is the cause, that 

 so small a quantity of electric fluid, set in motion by the 

 pile, produces effects, which require so great a quantity of 

 the same fluid, when put in motion by any other means hi- 

 therto known ? 



On the first queftion, supposing the conducting faculty of Separation of 

 the pile to be the cause of the accumulation of the opposite tnese t0 disco* 

 effects produced on the electric fluid, I concluded, that Active ° ** 

 small metallic conductors placed between the really efficient 

 groups would not disturb the effects : but that, if these 

 conductors were so placed as to produce separate ternary as- 

 sociations different from that to which the effects are at- 

 tached, the latter would cease. Consequently that by ef- 

 fecting the three different divisions of the pile by small 

 conductors, I could not fail to discover the efficient groups; 

 a knowledge which might lead to resolve the second ques- 

 tion. 



When I proceeded in this plan, T soon found, tliat no Necessary in- 

 deep analysis of the operations of the pile could have been struments. 

 obtained without these admirable instruments, the gold-leaf 

 electroscope of Mr. Bennet, and the condenser of Si°-. 

 Volta. So minute are the quantities of electric fluid ne-? 

 cessary to be observed in the course of these experiments. 



The necessity of having gold-leaf electroscopes directly Apparatus 

 connected with each extremity of the pile, determined the descriDe< *« 

 form o^the apparatus which I used for these researches, 

 which is represented in Plate III, rig. l : it consists of two 

 tumldv frames, which may be used separately for other pur- 

 poses ; but for these experiments, they are fixed on the 

 same board, and they form a pile divided into two columns 

 A and B. The frame of each column is composed of three 



glass 



