471 
with facts. Mr. Donovan terminated this part of the inquiry 
with the following observations : 
** I have thus freely expressed my opinions relative to the 
eurrent, fearing that the old legitimate sense has been lost 
sight of; that many have understood it to mean something 
more than is warranted by proved properties; and that the 
universally admitted identity of the agent in electric and vol- 
taic phenomena has emboldened philosophers to attribute qua- 
ities to the former which belong only to the latter. On the 
whole, I conceive that the current, in its modern acceptation, 
instead of explaining voltaic phenomena, is calculated to 
mislead ; and that it is of no avail in obviating the difficulties 
which beset the alleged simultaneous operations of the two 
states of electricity, when present in a state of commixture, 
and which, instead of being at that moment in their condition 
__ of greatest energy, should be destitute of all sensible proper- 
ties.” . 
F Sir Robert Kane read a communication from the Rev. Dr. 
Callan, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the College at 
Maynooth, on some improvements in the construction and use 
of the Galvanic Battery. 
«¢ Some time ago, whilst I was reflecting on the principle 
of action of Grove’s and Bunsen’s batteries, it occurred to me 
that lead might be substituted for the platina of Grove’s and 
_ the carbon of Bunsen’s. I putinto the porous cell of a Grove's 
3 battery a plate of lead about one-sixteenth of an inch thick, 
~ two inches broad, and six inches long. I found that the voltaic 
current produced by the lead, excited by a mixture of concen- 
trated nitric and sulphuric acid, was very powerful. I after- 
wards compared the power of the leaden battery with that of 
a Grove’s battery of the same size, by sending at the same 
time, but in opposite directions, through the helix of a galva- 
“nometer, the current produced by the two batteries. Both 
"batteries were charged with the same acids. ‘The voltaic cur- 
