92 The Rev. Dr. Callan's Experiments on the 



flection of 67° was produced in the needle of the tangent galva- 

 nometer. When the current was sent from the same 12 cells 

 acting in one series through the coil alone, the deflection was 

 only Q^°. Hence more electricity passed from the two rows of 

 six each through the fluid, than from 12 cells through the wire. 

 Now it is well known, that when a current of electricity passes 

 from one end of a battery to the other through a conductor in 

 which it meets no resistance, the same quantity will pass in a 

 given time between the ends of the battery, whether it consist of 

 a single pair, or of a hundred or of a thousand circles, or of any 

 number whatever. Hence more electricity will pass in any time 

 through a solution of carbonate of soda from 12 cells arranged 

 in two rows of six each, than will pass in the same time through 

 a wire or fluid from a thousand, or any number of cells of the 

 same size. Therefore whether Mr. Faraday's law hold for power- 

 ful currents of great intensity, or whether the conclusion drawn 

 from my experiments be just, 12 cells, arranged in two rows of 

 six each, will produce more decomposition in a given time than 

 will be produced by a thousand, or any number of cells acting 

 in one series. I have found, in the same way, that 8 cells, in 

 two rows of four each, will produce as much, or nearly as much, 

 of the mixed gases in a given time as any number acting in one 

 series. Hence, with the conmion voltameter, a battery of 500 

 cast-iron cells, arranged in rows of four, will produce more than 

 fifty times as much of the mixed gases as it will produce when 

 all the cells are arranged in one series. Besides, when the cells 

 are arranged in rows of four, the battery with a given charge 

 will act about twice as long as when all act in one series ; for in 

 the latter case about twice as much electricity passes constantly 

 through each cell as in the former, and consequently the power 

 of the battery is exhausted about twice as soon. Hence, on the 

 whole, with the common voltameter, a battery of 500 cast-iron 

 cells arranged in one series will not produce the hundredth part 

 of its full decomposing eff'ect ; but with the voltameter I have 

 described, it will, as I have shown, produce its full eff'ect. If a 

 battery of 4 cast-iron cells, and another of 1000 or of any number 

 of cells of the same size be similarly charged, the former will, 

 before its power is exhausted, produce as much of the mixed 

 gases as the latter ; because the former will produce in each mi- 

 nute as [half much as?] the latter, and it will work twice as long. 



I will here mention one of the experiments from which I in- 

 ferred, that in a voltameter for a battery of a large number of 

 cells arranged in one series, the number of decomposing cells 

 should be about one-fourth of the number of cells in the battery. 

 When the current was sent from 12 cells in series, through 

 4 decomposing cells and through the coil of the galvanometer. 



