i68 GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



the force and noise of the explosions, the spark, and the 

 distance over which the discharge can take place, &c., only 

 equalling the effects of a battery charged to a very low 

 degree, of a battery having an immense capacity; but which, 

 besides, infinitely surpasses the virtue and power of these 

 same batteries, inasmuch as it does not need, as they do, to 

 be charged beforehand, by means of outside electricity; and 

 inasmuch as it is capable of giving a shock whenever it is 

 touched, however frequently these contacts are made. . . . 

 I am going to give you here a more detailed description of this 

 apparatus, and of some similar arrangements, as well as the 

 most remarkable experiments concerned with them.' 



He then also describes the cup apparatus, in which the 

 liquid conductors are placed in cups, each of which contains 

 a strip of copper and zinc not in contact in the cup, but con- 

 nected outside in the correct order. Each cup thus forms 

 an element of the pile in another form, called to-day the 

 Voltaic element. Volta also describes at the same time some 

 other special observations with the pile, which however all 

 relate to the physiological action of the current: shocks 

 which are particularly strong when both hands are dipped 

 into vessels of water connected to the ends of the pile. Fur- 

 ther the continual increasing burning of the skin when the 

 ends of the pile or the chain of cups are touched, which Volta 

 quite rightly regards as a proof of the continual circulation of 

 electricity. He also investigates the effects on the organs of 

 taste, smell, and hearing, and on the eye. 



This publication brought Volta an invitation to Paris, to 

 lecture to the Academy, Napoleon Bonaparte also being 

 present; he was at that time First Consul. Much honour was 

 shown to Volta, and this must have given him great pleasure, 

 for he always seems to have been an admirer of France. 

 Five years previously, when Napoleon entered Italy at the 

 head of his army, he was member of a delegation sent to meet 

 the victor, Volta was fifty-five years of age when he 



