Te ee, ee 
« 
: ; Hare’s Diorimotor: e 
Arr. XIX. A New Theory of Gulvanism, supported by some Ex- 
periments and Observations made by meansof the Calorimotor, 
anew Galvanic Instrument. Read before the Academy of Nat- 
ural Sciences, Philadelphia,* by Rosert Hane, M.D. Professor 
of Chemistry in the Medical Department of the University of 
Pennsylvania, and Member of several Learned Societies. 
(With an Engraving.) 
| HAVE for some time been of opinion that the principle 
extricated by the Voltaic pile is a compound of caloric and 
electricity, both being original and collateral products of 
Galvanic action. 
The grounds of this conviction and some recent experiments 
confirming it, are stated in the following paper. 
It is well known that the heat is liberated by the Voltaic appa- 
ratus, in a manner and degree which has not been imitated by 
means of mechanical electricity ; and that the latter, while it 
strikes at a greater distance, and pervades conductors with 
much greater speed, can with difficulty be made to effect the 
slightest decompositions. Wollaston, it is true, decomposed 
water by means of it; but the experiment was performed of 
necessity on a scale too minute to permit of his ascertaining, 
whether there were any divellent polar attractions exercised 
towards the atoms, as in the case of the pile. The result was 
probably caused by mechanical concussion, or that process by 
which the particles of matter are dispersed when a battery is 
discharged through them. The opinion of Dr. omson, 
that the fluid of the pile is in quantity greater, in intensity 
less than that evolved by the machine, is very inconsistent 
with the experiments of the chemist above mentioned, who, 
before he could effect the separation of the elements of water 
by mechanical electricity, was obliged to confine its emission 
* In whose Journal it was ordered to be printed, but, to prevent delay, it 
was published, by the Author, in a separate paper, and forwarded by him to 
the Editor of this Journal. 
Vou. I....No. 4. 13 
