Voltaic Batteries^ S^c. 61 



take place in such an arrangement, under such circumstances, 

 will be altered if the plates be made larger or smaller, or if 

 the strength of the acid or the distance of the plates from one 

 another be altered. But the action resulting from any of 

 these three modifying causes is still of the same kind though 

 different in degree ; and it is with the finding of the amount 

 of these differences in degree, in connexion with the circum- 

 stances which cause them, that the first part of this paper is 

 chiefly occupied. 



25. These degrees of action may either be considered as 

 degrees of chemical or of electrical action. The operations 

 themselves are chemical ; and the quantity of chemical action 

 is determined by the quantity of matter which has been em- 

 ployed in it. But this chemical action is induced by a voltaic 

 arrangement ; and on the principle stated above, that if not 

 identical, these two kinds of action are co-existent and equal 

 in quantity and effect, the quantities now determined by ex- 

 periment may be considered as quantities either of chemical 

 or of voltaic action: by whichsoever name they may bef called, 

 the experimental results themselves remain unaffected. 



26. These explanations are called for to show the connex- 

 ion which the method I here employ has with the principle 

 discovered by Faraday ; and to show also in what respects 

 its results may be wholly dis-associated from any of the mere 

 theoretical considerations which have followed that discovery. 

 The details which follow are confined solely to the progress 

 and results of experiment ; or to such general conclusions 

 only as seem to be warranted by a sufficiency of incontestable 

 evidence. 



27. The preceding remarks apply equally to the method 

 used in the 2nd and 3rd parts of the following paper, though 

 the ultimate object in each is different. 



28. The particular objects of the 1st and 2nd parts have 

 perhaps been already sufficiently adverted to, but this seems 

 to be the proper place, immediately after the preceding re- 

 marks, to define the precise object more particularly aimed 

 at in the third. 



29. The researches of Faraday have proved that in one 

 great class of its phenomena the action of electricity is defi- 

 nite; and in another class (more particularly examined in 

 the 3rd part of this paper), but entirely different from any ex- 

 amined by Faraday, it will subsequently be shown that the 

 same principle prevails. In the former case the phaenomena 

 so examined related chiefly to the influence of quantity of 

 electricity both as regarded its production and its effects. In 

 the latter case the examinations do not regard the production 



