f 93 1 

 XVII. Intelligence and Mifcellaneous Articles. June 1 80 1. 



M 



GALVANISM. 



R. BOLTON, of Birmingham, has fucceeded in pro- 

 curing fuch a fpark by the galvanic pile as to be able to ex- 

 plode by its means a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gafes. 

 His pile confiftcd of 1500 pairs of plates. 



Mr. Cruickfhank has alio fucceeded in exploding the fame 

 ingredients by means of the galvanic fpark. He employs a 

 galvanic battery of his own invention. It confifts of troughs 

 made of baked wood, with notches at fhort diftances, fawn 

 in the fides oppofite to each other, to receive pairs of fquare 

 metallic plates, zinc, and filver, foldered together, and intro- 

 duced with cement compofed of refin and wax. Three pairs 

 of plates, with the intervening cells, occupy about an inch 

 and a tenth of the trough, and the cells are fo well fecured 

 with cement that no water can pal's from one to another. 

 One trough is about 26 inches in length, ry inch deep, and 

 1*5 inch wide, and contains 60 pairs of plates. A galvanic 

 battery may be compofed by connecting feveral of thefe 

 troughs together. When the machine is employed, the in- 

 terllices or cells between the plates are filled with water, with 

 folutions of falls or alkalies, or with dilute acid : it gives 

 ftrong fhocks and fparks, vifible in the day-time ; and is 

 found to be eafily kept in order, and in conftant action, 

 when that is wifhed. 



C. Fourcroy has juft publifhed the following notice : — 

 u Among the new fa6ts with which the fcience of nature- is 

 daily enriched, none is fo remarkable, or deferves more the 

 attention of philofophers, than that relating to the inflam- 

 mation of iron by galvanifm. The apparatus for the expe- 

 riment, made at the French National Institute in the fitting 

 of the firft Clafs on the 10th of June, before the Count of 

 Leghorn, confifts of eight plates of zinc and eight plates of 

 copper from 10 inches to 7 j inches in diameter, and from a 

 line and a half to two lines in thicknefs, placed upon each, 

 other, and feparated two and two by pieces of cloth of the 

 fame fize, well moiftened with a faturated folution of mu- 

 riate of ammonia. The two pieces of metal at the extremi- 

 ties of this apparatus, the zinc and the copper, were made 

 to communicate by means of two filver wires, at the extre- 

 mity of one of which was a bit of very fine iron wire rolled 

 in a fpiral form, the free point of which projected beyond the 

 filver wire. At the moment of contact, the iron becomes 

 red, and emits very bright fparks. Sometimes it inflames 



with 



