4 Eloge of Alexander Volia^ 



ther empty or full, has the same electrical capacity, provided the 

 surface continue uniform. An observation of Lemonnier indica- 

 ted, that, besides equality of surface, the form of the body is not 

 without influence. Volta, however, was the first to establish this 

 principle on a solid foundation. His experiments shewed, that 

 of two cylinders of the same surface, the longest received the 

 strongest charge ; a great advantage would therefore arise from 

 substituting for the large cylinders of ordinary machines, when- 

 ever circumstances permitted, a series of very small cylinders, 

 although their collective mass should not be of larger size. In 

 combining, for example, sixteen rows of slender rods silvered 

 over, each 1000 feet in length, we should possess, according to 

 Volta, a machine the sparks of which, like real thunder, would 

 destroy the largest animals. 



Not one of the Professor of Como"'s discoveries was the fruit 

 of chance. All the instruments with which he has enriched sci- 

 ence, existed in principle in his imagination before an artist at- 

 tempted to execute them. There was nothing fortuitous, for 

 instance, in the modifications to which Volta subjected the elec- 

 trophorus in order to transform it into a condensator, — that sin- 

 gular microscope, as it may be called, which reveals the presence 

 of the electrical fluid, when no other means could accomplish it. 



In the years 1776 and 1777, Volta'wrought for some months 

 at a subject of pure chemistry ; but, at the same time, electrici- 

 ty, the science to which he was so much attached, will be seen 

 to mix with his researches in the most fortunate combinations. 



At this time chemists had found native inflammable gas only 

 in mines of coal and rock-salt; they therefore regarded it as 

 one of the exclusive attributes of the mineral kingdom. Volta, 

 whose attention had been drawn to the subject by an accidental 

 observation of P. Campi, shewed that they were mistaken. He 

 proved that the putrefaction of animal and vegetable substances 

 is always accompanied by the production of inflammable gas ; and 

 that if the bottom of stagnant water, or the mud of a lake, be 

 stirred, the gas escapes through the water, producing all the or- 

 dinary appearances of ebullition. Thus the origin of the in- 

 flammable gas of marshes, a subject which had so long occupied 

 the attention of chemists, was a discovery of Volta. 



This discovery produced the belief that certain natural phew 



