Dr. Hare’s Description of Voltaic Series, &c. 287 
bottom of a box to réceive the pairs, the grooves are easily made to 
correspond. The box being heated as hot as the wood will bear and 
soaked with melted suet or beeswax, the pairs are slid into the 
grooves. 
To correspond with the outside of the box containing the pairs, 
the inside of one of two troughs placed side by side, as are those rep- 
resented in the engraving, having been prepared, the box must be 
cemented therein by a mixture of one part of suet and seven of rosin. 
The wood should be heated as hot as possible without taking fire. 
This may be effected by shavings, by a chauffer of coals, by a flam- 
beau made with spirit of wine, spirit of turpentine, or coal naphtha. 
By the consequent rarefaction, the pores being nearly vacated of the 
moisture and air with which they are naturally occupied, on cooling 
they will imbibe the cement which should be fused and introduced 
while the heat is at a maximum. 
A box without grooves, otherwise similar to that made for the 
pairs, should be made for the other compartment. Both boxes 
should be heated on the outside and soaked with cement, and intro- 
duced into their places, while hot enough to keep the cement fluid. 
In troughs thus constructed I have not found the leakage, of which 
Mr. Faraday complains, to take place. In fact | have made troughs 
without an inside box, which are made tight simply by tongueing 
the-boards, &c. putting them together with screws and white lead, 
and then cementing them on the inside as above described.* 
I propose in future to have the plates of an oblique form upon one 
of their sides, so as to be of a lesser width at bottom than at the upper 
edge. By these means they may easily be slid into their grooves, 
or removed for cleansing. The use of a membrane, as in Daniel’s 
ingenious apparatus, to prevent deposition on the plates, may be 
found advantageous, where a permanent supply of voltaic electricity 
is desirable, and is hypothetically highly interesting, as verifying 
some of those anticipations arising from Faraday’s researches, which 
led to its construction ; but yet I hold that expedient to be inappli- 
cable, in those constructions of voltaic series, which are otherwise 
most convenient, efficient and compact. 
Of the apparatus which I have latterly used, and which I call the 
Cruickshank deflagrator, I send engravings and descriptions, in some 
* The common wood screw is not sufficient. I used screw bolts and nuts, the 
latter let into the wood. In bringing up the joints a powerful joiner’s clamp press 
was employed. 
