Biographical ° | Notice of Alexander Volta. Tr 
» It is the union of all these couples, which is called the yol-. 
vied 
han 
tacked, particularly by the English chemists. ‘We will not 
say with the author of the notice, that it may be rigorously 
ioned by the liquid, is 
only the effect, and not the cause of the electrical agent ; 
we believe on the contrary, that if it is true, as Volta has: 
proved it, that the contact of the metals is necessary for the 
production of this electricity, it is not less true also, that the 
chemical action of: the acids, or of the saline solutions upon 
the metallic plates contributes much to the effect. - But we 
must also admit that the theory of the pile is far from bein 
perfect, and that we cannot hope to have a more satisfactory 
one until the numerous and various effects of this admirable 
instrument are better understood. 
_Volta has shewn, as we have said before, that the agent 
produced by the contact of two different bodies, possesses 
all the properties of electricity, he shewed also, that this 
of the electricity of machines, such as attraction and repul- 
sion, charging a Leyden bottle, &c. and in a word, it is 
known that the accumulation at one of the poles is called 
negative, from ative or resinous electrici nd at 
ricity, the 
other pole, it is called positive, from positive or vitreous elec- 
trici 
The discovery of the pile is important, not only because 
it o to us a new class of phenomena, and because 
it furnishes a new mode ucing electricity ;—it is) 
especially important because it presents electricity to us 
under a form until then unknown, and which renders this 
permitting the two accumulated electricities to reunite, and 
form a current, which is found to be continual, on account 
