SKETCH OF ALESSANDRO VOLT A. 121 



ject which, could be called incorrect, even at the present day. His 

 first communication concerning his researches on the develop- 

 ment of electricity by contact was addressed to the Royal Society 

 of England in 1792. In his account of the pile, addressed to Sir 

 J. Banks, and read before the Royal Society in June, 1800, Volta 

 described some of the experimental results obtained with it, and 

 showed that all the effects produced were the same as those which 

 could be obtained from electrical machines, and that therefore 

 galvanism and electricity were identical. 



Volta received the Copley medal of the Royal Society in 1791 

 or 1792. In 1801 he visited Paris, upon the invitation of the First 

 Consul, and there repeated his experiments on the development 

 of electricity by contact before a commission of the Institute. 

 According to M. Arago's story of the meeting, the First Consul 

 desired to attend in person the session at which the commission- 

 ers were to present a detailed account of the grand phenomena. 

 Hardly had their conclusions been read, when he proposed to de- 

 cree a gold medal to Volta as a testimonial of the appreciation in 

 which he was held by French men of science. Custom and the 

 academical regulations hardly permitted compliance with this de- 

 mand ; but the regulations were made for ordinary conditions, 

 and the professor from Pavia had placed himself beyond their 

 line. The medal was voted by acclamation ; and on the same day 

 Volta was given, by order of Napoleon, the sum of two thousand 

 francs from the state funds toward the expenses of his journey. 

 In 1808 he was made one of the eight foreign associates designated 

 by the Institute. He was also decorated with the crosses of the 

 Legion of Honor and of the Iron Crown ; was named a member 

 of the Council of Lyon ; and in 1810 was raised to the dignity of 

 a senator of the kingdom of Italy, with the title of count. When, 

 in 1804, he desired to retire from the university, the Emperor said 

 he could not consent to such a step. " If Volta's functions as a 

 professor are fatiguing to him, let them be reduced. Let him, if 

 he will, have to give only one lesson a year ; but the University 

 of Pavia would be struck to the heart on the day that I should 

 permit so illustrious a name to disappear from the list of its 

 members. Besides," he added, " a good general ought to die on 

 the field of battle." So Volta continued to attract young men to 

 his lectures. In 1815 the Emperor of Austria made Volta Director 

 of the Philosophical Faculty of Padua. 



Sir Humphry Davy, who visited Volta at Milan in 1814, when 

 he was sixty-nine years old, found him a man well advanced in 

 age and in poor health. "His conversation was not brilliant; 

 his views were narrow, but marked by considerable ingenuity. 

 His manners were of perfect simplicity. He had not the air of a 

 courtier, or even that of a man who had lived in the world. In 



