Royal Insl'itnlion. 471 



fishes; the manner of puncturing shells to produce pearls ; and 

 the mode which snails adopt to repair their broken shells, Sec. 



J. G. Children, Esq. submitted to the Society a description of 

 his very large Galvanic battery, each plate of which consisted of 32 

 square feet, and related the effects of a great number of experi- 

 ments made with it in producing intense heat, in melthig metals, 

 ike. One experiment was on iron. He and Mr. Pepvs took a 

 ])iece of soft iron, made a cavity in it to hold some diamond 

 powder, and then submitted it to the action of the Galvanic bat- 

 tery ; when the iron was instantly converted into blister steel, 

 and the diamond entirely disappeared. This experiment, the 

 author concluded, was quite satisfactory to prove that the dia- 

 mond contains nothing but pure carbon. 



The title of a paper by Mr. Lee, On the dispersive Power of 

 the Atmosphere, and that of several others, were read, in order 

 that they might be printed in the forthcoming volume of the Phi- 

 losophical Transactions. — The Society then adjourned til! Thurs- 

 day the 9th of November. 



ROYAL INSTITUTION. 



Professor T^rande in his fifteenth and concluding lecture pre- 

 sented his audience with a succinct account of the origin and 

 progress of electro-chemical science, and dwelt particularlv upon 

 the brilliant and important discoveries and researches of his prte- 

 decessor. Sir H. Davy. 



The application of electricity to chemistry seems to have ori- 

 ginated with BeccariM and Canton, and to have been brought 

 into more general notice by the experiments of Dr. Priestlev, and 

 the refined and masterly researches of Mr. Cavendish ; but no- 

 thing very important was achieved in this branch of experimental 

 philosophy previously to the discovery of the Voltaic pile. In the 

 easiest experiments with tlis instrument some of its leading 

 chemical powers were developed, especially its decomposing 

 energies in regard to water and saline solutions: it was also ob- 

 served that the electrization of distilled water was attended with 

 the extrication of acid and alkaline matter, a j)ha?nomenon in 

 explanation of which a variety of crude and unsatisfactory hypo- 

 theses were indulged in : it was conceived that pure water was 

 capable of producing acids and alkalies, by uniting with positive 

 and negative electricity ; that these bodies passed from the bat- 

 tery through the conducting wires into the water; and that there 

 resulted from the decomposition of tiie aqueous elements, oxy- 

 gen and hydrogen. The amusement of hypothesis being thus pre- 

 ferred to the drudgery of experiment, the advances towards truth 

 were slow and imperfect, and philosophers seemed rather in- 

 clined to talk and rcabon upon the remarkable and new phaeno- 



uicna. 



