On thi Chemical EffeSls of th Pile of Folta. 4J?3 



account fliould be given of the other. It is a new principle for It Infenfibly to hurry 

 through the water for a diftance of fix inches or more, and there to make its appearance 

 in the character of gas. Voha's difcovery of the pile feems to open a very large field of 

 inquiry ; it has already altered the arrangement of many fa£ls in philofophical chemiftry. 

 As an individual experimentalift, I can fay it has led me to many inveftigations which 

 have explained difficulties which heretofore confiderably perplexed me. 



I may hereafter take the liberty of fubmilting to you fomc further experiments and 

 obfervations on this fubjefl:, and fome opinions refpeding the generally received do£lrine 

 of the decompofition of water. 



If you (liQuld deem this worthy a place In your learned Journal> by inferting it you 

 will oblige 



Your obedient humble fervant, 



AN EXPERIMENTALIST. 

 December 21, 1800. 



*,* The elucidation of the above and many other difficulties of the new galvanic phi- 

 lofophy mud be left to the experimental refearchcs of thofe able men who arc now 

 employed upon it. But I may here remark that it is probable that the local proximity of 

 chemical efiedts dependant on each other may not be fuch as my correfpondent apprehends, 

 but that fome diftance both of fpace and time may intervene between all fuch phenomena. 

 The current from the pile may perhaps teach us to generalize and correal our notions 

 on this head. Is it not a parallel fa£l in chemiftry that the vegetations of a metal (pre- 

 cipitated from an acid by the contemporaneous folution of another metal) are formed and 

 depofited at the diftance of many inches frpm the place of folution ? When lead, for 

 example, is precipitated by zinc, and the vegetation towards the end of the procefs is 

 formed near the bottom of a tall veflel, — is not the folution of the zinc an evidence, 

 according to our common procefs of reafoning, that lead exifts alfo in the folvent at 

 that place of adlion ; and if fo, why is not that lead feparated inftead of the other very 

 remote portion ?— N.^ 



Vol. IV.— January 1801. 3P Will. Afemoif 



