54? Royal Society. 



and in giving to the public some books explanatory of the ele- 

 ments, and others more profound ; but all in a language little 

 known in this country. He has now departed this life full of 

 years, and with a reputation commensurate with his age. 



Professor Volta has enjoyed the rare and enviable felicity 

 of founding a new science. Mr. Galvani had indeed observed 

 the extraordinary effects of peculiarly modified electricity, in 

 exciting the nerves and muscles of frogs : but misled by the 

 physiological hypothesis of a nervous fluid acting interme- 

 diately between the sentient principle and the material frame, 

 he hastily concluded that the nervous fluid was now within his 

 reach ; and the appearances were denominated Animal Elec- 

 tricity. Nor can we perhaps justly blame Galvani for the 

 generalization that he had formed. Volta himself adopted it 

 for some time, as appears from his paper communicated in 

 1 793 : but further experience convinced him that the whole 

 might be explained by electricity chemically produced ; and 

 this opinion has been satisfactorily demonstrated by the in- 

 vention of his pile. Mr. Volta communicated a paper to the 

 Royal Society as early as the year 1782, "On a method of 

 detecting minute quantities of electricity." In 1791 he was 

 elected a Fellow on the Foreign list. And in 1793 Mr. Volta 

 transmitted to the Royal Society, through Mr. Cavallo, the 

 account of Mr. Galvani' s discoveries and of his own ; which 

 obtained for him the reward of your Copley medal. And in 

 1800 the Transactions were again enriched by a paper from 

 Mr. Volta " On the electricity excited by mere contact." — 

 To pursue the history of Voltaic or chemical electricity any 

 further, would be to detail the successful labours of our own 

 countrymen. Here the pile has been modified into the much 

 more convenient and efficient form of the plates and trough 

 which, in the hands of Sir Humphry Davy, have produced 

 effects equally astonishing and important: and enlarged by 

 the gentleman who now sits on my left hand*, the plates have 

 exhibited such energies as were previously not even contem- 

 plated. Galvani has not affixed his name to the science of which 

 he is in a great degree the parent, and which has continued 

 to exercise his genius up to the extremity of a long life : but 

 he has had the satisfaction of witnessing the continually in- 

 creasing brightness of a flame first kindled by himself, and 

 which he has never ceased to fan. 



I now approach La Place. But it cannot be expected that 

 I should give more than a very slight sketch of this extra- 

 ordinary man. 



La Place appears to have commenced his illustrious career 

 * Mr. Children. 



in 



