Eloge of Alexander Volta, 3 



for the fairest kingdom in the world. It would now be quite 

 superfluous to collect the various theories to which the phial 

 gave rise. The honour of having solved the important prol> 

 lem is due to Franklin, and the work of Volta, it must be allow- 

 ed, has added very little to the knowledge we derived from that 

 of the illustrious philosopher of America. The second memoir 

 of the philosopher of Como appeared in 1771. Here we scarcely 

 find any idea of a systematic kind. Observation is the author's 

 only guide in the researches which he undertakes in order to de- 

 termine the nature of the electricity of bodies with various coat- 

 ings, — to assign the circumstances of temperature, of colour, of 

 elasticity, which cause the phenomena to vary, — to study electri- 

 city, whether produced by friction, by percussion, or by pres- 

 sure, — or that which is engendered by the aid of the file or the 

 grater^ — and, finally, to ascertain the properties of a new kind of 

 electrical machine, in which the moveable table and the insulated 

 supports were of dried wood. 



On this side the Alps, the two first memoirs of Volta were 

 scarcely read. In Italy, on the contrary, they produced a live- 

 ly sensation. Authority, whose predilections are so generally 

 misplaced, particularly where, in its blind love for absolute 

 power, it refuses to competent judges the right of decision, was 

 eager in this case to encourage the young experimentalist. He 

 was nominated superintendent of the Royal School of Como, 

 and soon after Professor of Natural Philosophy. 



The missionaries of Pekin, in the year 1755, communicated 

 to the learned of Europe an important fact which they had ac- 

 cidentally observed, concerning electricity, whose influence on 

 certain bodies appears or disappears according as these bodies 

 are separated or brought into contact. This fact gave rise lo 

 the interesting researches of ^Epinus, Wilcke, Cigna, and Bec- 

 caria. Volta, in his turn, made it the subject of particular study, 

 and found in it the germ of his perpetual electropharus, an ad- 

 mirable instrument, which, though of the smallest volume, is an 

 inexhaustible source of electrical fluid, from which charges of 

 equal power can always be obtained without recourse being had 

 to friction, and in all states of the atmosphere. 



In 1778 another very important work succeeded the memoir on 

 the Electrophorus. It was already known, that a given body, whe- 



A 2 



