. iis : 
Biographical Notice of Aletander Vola. 67 
it ismore uniform. Every part of the cloth is equally expo- 
sed to the operation, and the coloring matter detached from 
the cloth, floats in the liquor below. a 
_ This appears to me to determine the question which some 
have raised, whether the coloring matter of linen is actual- 
ly detached from the cloth, or is bleached upon it without 
P. S. [have omitted to notice, that the saving in alkali 
by this method of bleaching, compared with the usual con- 
sumption by the English, Scotch and Irish Bleachers, is 
about twenty-five per cent. 
_ Arr. IX.—Biographical Notice of Alexander Volta. 
(Translated for this Journal by Prof. John Griscom.) 
Berore the great discovery which bears his name, and 
which has immortalized him, Volta had devoted himself to 
Electricity, and Chemistry. The researches of Mu cher 
broeck, greatly interested him, and it was not long after this, 
that his memoir on the attractive force of the electric fluid, 
appeared. At a later period, he applied himself to perfec- 
ting the philosophical instruments for measuring electricity, 
* Specimens of these articles perfectly bleached by Mr. Smith’s procéss are 
in our hands.—Ep. iy 
