Prof. Schoenbein on the Gaseous Voltaic Battery. 165 
strict geometrical kind, and to those floating vapours we could 
hardly assign anything like symmetrical results,—guided, also, 
by the analogy of cooling bodies, which lose part of their heat 
through radiation, and part through the current action of the 
air, and part through the conducting power of their supports, 
I have been led to take the view of the phanomena in ques- 
tion which I have set forth. 
University, New York, Dec. 5, 1842. 
XXIV. On the Theory of the Gaseous Voltaic Battery. By 
C. F. Scuanzern, Professor of Chemistry in the University 
of Basle. 
To R. Taylor, Esq. 
My pear Sir, 
| was with no small degree of interest that I perused the 
other day Mr. Grove’s communication [Phil. Mag. S. 3. 
vol. xxi. p. 417], containing a description both of a gaseous 
voltaic battery, and of some experiments made with that ar- 
rangement. ‘The results obtained by that distinguished phi- 
losopher are, indeed, such as will certainly draw upon them 
the attention of all scientific men who occupy themselves with 
voltaic researches. Having myself made some investigations 
concerning a similar subject, and ascertained a series of facts 
which, in my opinion, are closely connected with Professor 
Grove’s beautiful experiments,—and a good deal of scientific 
interest being attached to the matter in question—I take the 
liberty to direct your attention to the contents of a paper of 
mine which was published -first in the Transactions of the 
Swiss Association, 1841, and afterwards in Pogeendorft’s 
Annalen, 1842, No. 5, under the title, ** On the Voltaic Po- 
larization of Solid and Fluid Bodies.” 
As some of the questions and suggestions stated in Mr. 
Grove’s last paper have already been answered and appre- 
ciated, and one or two material points immediately bearing 
upon the recent researches of that ingenious and skilful expe- 
rimenter are fully discussed in the memoir alluded to, it might, 
perhaps, interest those English philosophers who are not in 
the habit of reading German periodicals, to see in your ex- 
cellent Magazine a translation of my paper, or some abstracts 
from it. 
Before closing my letter, permit me to say a few words in 
reference to the voltaic part which, in my humble opinion, 
oxygen acts in the novel gaseous battery of Mr. Grove. Ac- 
cording to my experiments, as stated in the paper before- 
mentioned, an aqueous solution of hydrogen being voltaically 
