T H E 



LONDON AND EDINBURGH 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



APRIL 1837. 



A 



XLVIII. All Account of a new Voltaic Battery, being a Mo- 

 dification of the Construction recommended by Mr. F'araday. 

 By Mr, James Young, Chemical Assistant in the Andersonian 

 University,*' 



[With Figures : Plate U.] 



PLAIN working battery, containing a considerable num- 

 ber of pairs of plates, arranged on the principle of the 

 pile of Volta or the trough of Cruickshanks, is the instru- 

 ment which we habitually have recourse to for illustrating 

 chemical decompositions, and the other effects of voltaic elec- 

 tricity requiring considerable tension. Various constructions 

 of this battery are in use, of which we are concerned only with 

 that originally suggested by Dr. Hare, but of the value of 

 which electricians were not aware till it was clearly demon- 

 strated by Mr. Faraday f. The existence of a defect, however, 

 is fully admitted by Mr. Faraday, in the construction which he 

 recommends. To prevent metallic contact between contiguous 

 copper plates, cartridge paper is interposed between them. 

 The paper l>ecomes saturated with the acid solution used as 

 the exciting liquor, and the acid cannot be washed out of the 

 paper, but is retained by it after the battery is laid aside, and 

 may then occasion the solution of the copper, seeing that zinc 

 no longer enters into a circle with the acid and copper, and 



* Communicated by the Author. 



-j- Dr. Hare's paper describing his battery will be found in Phil. Mag., 

 First Series, vol. vii. p. 284; and Mr. Faraday's in Lend. andEdinb. Phil. 

 Mag., vol. viii. p. 114.— Edit. 



Third Series. Vol. 10. No. 61. April 1837. 2 I 



