338 JDr. Harems new Galvanic Apparatus, Theory, S^x. [May, 



is only exerted between atoms, is supposed to be a principal 

 agent in galvanism. Nor has any other reason been given that 

 water, which dissipates pure electricity, should cause the galva- 

 nic fluid to accumulate. From the prodigious effect which moist 

 air, or a moist surface, has in paralysing the most efficient 

 machines, I am led to suppose, that the conducting power of 

 moisture so situated is greater than that of water under its sur- 

 face. The power of this fluid to conduct mechanical electricity 

 is unfairly contrasted with that of a metal, when the former is- 

 enclosed in a glass tube, the latter bare. 



According to Singer, the electrical accumulation is as great 

 ■when water is used as when more powerful menstrua are 

 employed ; but the power of ignition is wanting until these are 

 resorted to. De Luc showed, by his ingenious dissections of 

 the pile, that electricity might be produced ivithoutj or with 

 chemical power. The rationale of these differences never has 

 been given, unless by my theory, which supposes caloric to be 

 present in the one case, but not in the other. The electric 

 column was the fruit of De Luc^s sagacious inquiries, and 

 afforded a beautiful and incontrovertible support to the objec- 

 tions he made to the idea, that the galvanic fluid is pure electri- 

 city, when extricated by the voltaic pile in its usual form. It 

 showed that a pile really producing pure electricity is devoid of 

 the chemical power of galvanism. 



We are informed by Sir II. Davy that, when charcoal points 

 in connection with the poles of the magnificent apparatus witk 

 which he operated, were first brought nearly into contact, and • 

 then withdrawn four inches apart, there was a heated arch 

 ibrmed between thein, in which such non-conducting substances 

 as quartz were fused. I believe it impossible to fuse electrics 

 by mechanical electricity. If opposing its passage, they may 

 be broken, and if conductors near them be ignited, they may be 

 acted on by those ignited conductors as if otherwise heated; but " 

 I will venture to predict, that the slightest glass fibre will not 

 ^nter into fusion by being placed in a current from the largest 

 machine, or electrical battery. 



I am induced to believe that we must consider hght, as well 

 as heat, an ingredient in the galvanic fluid ; and think it pos- 

 sible, that, being necessary to vitahty in animals, as well as. 

 vegetables, the electric fluid may be the vehicle of its distri- 

 bution. 



I will take this opportunity of stating, that the heat evolved 

 by one galvanic pair has been found, by the experiments which 

 I instituted, to increase in quantity, but to diminish in intensity,, 

 as the size of the surfaces may be enlarged. A pair containing 

 about 50 square feet of each metal will not fuse platina, nor 

 deflagrate iron, however small may be the wire employed; for 

 the heat produced in metaUic wires is not improved by a reduc- 

 tion in their size beyond a certain point. Yet the metals above- 



