Mr. J. Prideaux on the Theory of Voltaic Action. 255 



tached to the plates will gradually drain off, and those remain- 

 ing in the liquid may reassume the arrangement due to their 

 natural affinities. Thus the energy of action should be re- 

 newed on replacing the plates in the liquid ; and this renova- 

 tion should have more or less permanence, according as the 

 re-establishment of the natural order of affinities were more 

 or less complete, and freed from remaining electrical influence. 

 And this, in an imperfectly conducting liquid, subject to the 

 effects of combination and decomposition before noticed (28.), 

 may be an operation not quite instantaneous. 



35. If such an electrical arrangement of molecules be the 

 chief cause of decay of power in a battery (when the neu- 

 tralization of acid or alkaline charges is not concerned/, then 

 washing the- plates instantly, on their removal from the 

 liquid (although kept beneath the surface of the water all the 

 time they are out of the charge), should make them as effec- 

 tive, on being plunged into a fresh solution, as hanging for 

 any length of time in the air. And keeping them in the se- 

 cond solution until the force be again much reduced, should 

 give the first charge time to recover its natural state, by which 

 the plates on being removed from the second, washed, and 

 returned to the first, should have all their original energy. 

 And thus the action should be renewable by washing and 

 alternation, until the formation of a coat of suboxide on the 

 plates should impede their contact with the liquid, and there- 

 fore require friction or an acid to cleanse them. 



36. The apparatus described (30), in which the cells are 

 nearly filled by the little calorimotors, and the whole liquid 

 charge consequently subjected to their action, gave results 

 corresponding so accurately with these anticipations, that 

 doubts might have been excited of their fairness, particularly 

 as the structure of the instrument is a little complicated, which 

 would make the experiments troublesome to repeat ; and as 

 each calorimotor is bound by a wooden frame, which might 

 be supposed to retain a portion of the water or acid employed 

 in washing, the following simple arrangement was therefore 

 substituted. 



A pair of zinc and copper plates, 3 inches square, each pro- 

 vided with a conducting wire, were fixed together at the interval 

 of £ inch, by short cylinders of sealing-wax at the four corners, 

 with the aid of heat. The backs of the plates were then var- 

 nished ; so that the polished faces, opposed to each other at 

 ati invariable distance, were the only parts capable of action. 

 The liquid charge was 4 ounces sulphate of zinc, dissolved in a 

 quart of water, and it was contained in two glasses, G and H. 



