en the Experiments of Volia. 309 



When a fcience, already far advanced, has made an im- 

 portant (tcp, new connctftions are formed between the branches 

 of which it is compofed : we are always fond of looking back- 

 wards to meafure the licld it has palled over, and to fee how 

 the human mind has advanced in it. If we thus go back to 

 the birth of elec:iricity, we fliall find it, at the commence- 

 ment of the laft centur'v, confined merely to the phajnomena 

 of attraction and rcpulfion alone. Dufiy firft afcertained the 

 conftant laws to which they are fubjected, and explained their 

 apparent fingularities. His difcovery of two kinds of elec- 

 tricity, refin'ous and vitreous, laid a foundation for the bafis 

 of the fcience; and Franklin, by prefenting it under a new 

 point of view, made it the foundation of his theory, to which 

 all the pha?noniena, even that of the Leyden flafk, were na- 

 turally referred. ^Epiniis completed the proofs of this theory, 

 Wouffht it to perfection by applying to it calculation, and by 

 the help of analvfis attained to thofe phsenomena which 

 C. V^olta has fo happily employed in the condenfer and elec- 

 trophorus. The rigorous law of eleftric attraction and re- 

 pulfion, Itill wanting, was eftablidied by exadt experiments, 

 and, connefting itfelf with that of magnetifm, was found to 

 be the fame in regard to celeftial attraftions. It is well 

 known that C. Coulomb is the author of this difcovery. 



At length appeared the galvanic phsenomena, fo Angular 

 in their progrefs and fo different in appearance from every 

 thina: known before. At firft, a peculiar fluid was cre- 

 atedlo explain them ; but C. Volta, by a feries of ingenious 

 experiments conducted with fagacity, propofes to refer to 

 one caufe the development of metallic eleftricity ; to employ 

 them for the conftru£lion of an apparatus which will allow 

 their force to be augmented at pleafure; and conne6ls them, 

 by his refults, with important phoenomena of chemiftry and 

 the animal economy. 



In confequcnce of a requeft: made by one of your mem- 

 bers, and which vou referred to a commiflion, we propofe 

 that the gold medal of the Inliitute be awarded to C. Volta, 

 as a teftimony of the fatisfaftion of the clafs for the noble 

 difcoveries with which he has enriched the theory of elec- 

 tricity, and as a mark of its gratitude for having conmumi- 

 calctl them to it. 



U 3 LI. Thoughts 



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