Eioge ()f Alexander Volta. 2$ 



quite extinct. Under the combined action of the two wires, tb^ 

 OTMscles of the head of a hanged criminal underwent such terril^e 

 contortions, that the spectators fled in dismay. Sometimes the 

 trunk of the victim partly rose up, the hands were tossed about, 

 and struck objects near tliera, and even raised weights of sever^ 

 pounds. The inuscles of the breast imitated the moveinents of 

 respiration ; and all the motions were so like those of a living 

 being, that one felt inclined to ask, whether the experimenter 

 was not adding to the sufferings which the law had inflicted o^ 

 the criminal, 



Insects, likewise, when subjected to the saqae trial, shew sooae 

 curious results. The wires of the pile, for exaipple, increase 

 greatly the light of the kinds that are luminous ; they restore 

 the motions of a dead grasshopper, and cause it to sing. 



On leaving the consideration of the physiological properties of 

 the pile, and regai'ding it as an electrical machine, we shall be 

 transferred to that department of science which Nicholson and 

 Carlisle, Hisinger and Berzelius, Davy, Oersted, and Ampere, 

 have cultivated with suich brilliant success. 



Each of the wires, considered by itself, is of the ordinary 

 temperature, that is, the temperature of the surrounding air. 

 At the moinent the wires touch each other, they acquire a 

 strong heat ; when rather fine, they become incandescent ; and 

 ii still finer, they are completely melted, and run like a liquid, 

 evexx though they be formed of platina, the most infusible of 

 known metals. With a very strong pile, two slender wires of 

 gold or platina undergo, at the moment of their contact, a com- 

 plete vaponzation, and disappear like a thin vapour. 



Pieces of charcoal, fitted to the two extremities of the same 

 wires, kindle as soon as they touch each other. The light 

 -they diffuse is so pure, sparkling, and remarkable for its white- 

 jaess, that we shoidd not surpass the limits of truth by calling it 

 the solar light. 



And who can say that this analogy ought not to be carried 

 still farther, or whether the experiment does not solve the most 

 .important problem in natural philosophy ; revealing the secret 

 of that peculiar kind of combustion which the sun undergoes for 

 §o many ages without any sensible diminution either of matter or 

 of splendour ? The charcoal attact^ed to the two wires of the 



