472 The Ret. Professor Callan 07i a nexc Galvanic Battery. 



wardslet them be put together, and the process of magnetizing 

 be performed repeatedly upon each by the rest ; and it will be 

 found that each magnet possesses nearly, if not quite as much 

 magnetism as the one employed in the first instance, that is, as 

 the prime motor itself. This fact can scarcely be doubted, 

 although it is at variance with the Newtonian law of the per- 

 fect equality of action and reaction as applied to mechanical 

 forces, as no force can be supposed capable of generating 

 under the same circumstances a force greater than itself. 



Again, suppose we consider caloric as a moving force ; what 

 relation is there between that which is required to ignite a 

 quantity of gunpowder and the caloric developed by its com- 

 bustion? Several similar instances might be adduced of the 

 inapplicability of the Newtonian law to the explanation of 

 obscure physical facts. 



LXXXVIII. On a nexo Galvafiic Battery. By the Rev. 

 N.J. Callan, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the College 

 of Maynooth.* 



The following paper describes a new galvanic battery, con- 

 sisting of 20 zinc and as many double copper plates, the 

 whole of which may, by substituting one mercury trough 

 for another, be made to act as a single pair of plates, or 

 as 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, or 20 voltaic circles; and which is 

 capable of producing, by the aid of an electro-magnet, a 

 voltaic current equal in intensity to that of a battery con- 

 taining 1000 pairs of zinc and copper plates. 

 TTNDER my directions, and on a plan suggested by me, 

 ^ a very large galvanic battery has been lately constructed 

 for the College of Maynooth. This battery consists of 20 zinc 

 plates, each two feet long and two feet broad, and of as many 

 copper cells, each sufficiently large to contain one of the zinc 

 plates. To each zinc plate is soldered a copper wire about half 

 an inch thick and six inches long. The wire projects from the 

 plate'in a direction neai'ly parallel to the sides, and nearly pei'- 

 pendicular to the edge of the plate, which is vertical when the 

 plate is in its copper cell. At two inches from its extremity the 

 wire is bent so as to form nearly a right angle at the bend, 

 and so that these two inches are parallel to the vertical edge 

 of the plate. A wire of the same thickness, and about two 

 inches shorter, is soldered to each of the copper cells : it is 

 bent in the same way as the wires belonging to the zinc plates. 



* Communicated by the Author. 



