MO CORRELATION OF PHYSICAL FORCES. 



powerful voltaic battery, a combination which I made known 

 in the year 1839 ; indeed, we may safely say, that when the 

 chemical force is utilised, or not wasted, but all converted 

 into electrical force, the more powerful the chemical action, 

 the more powerful is the electrical action which results. 



If, instead of employing manufactured products or educts, 

 such as zinc and acids, we could realise as electricity the 

 whole of the chemical force which is active in the combustion 

 of cheap and abundant raw materials, such as coal, wood, fat, 

 &c., with air or water, we should obtain one of the greatest 

 practical desiderata, and have at our command a mechanical 

 power in every respect superior in its applicability to the 

 steam-engine. 



I have shown that the flame of the common blowpipe 

 gives rise to a very marked electrical current, capable not 

 only of affecting the galvanometer, but of producing chemical 

 decomposition : two plates or coils of platinum are placed, 

 the one in the portion of the flame near the orifice of the jet, 

 or at the points where combustion commences, the other in 

 the full yellow flame where combustion is at its maximum ; 

 this latter should be kept cool, to enable a thermo-electric 

 current, which is produced by the different temperature of the 

 platinum plates, to co-operate with the flame current ; wires 

 attached to the plates of platinum form the terminals or 

 poles. By a row of jets a flame battery may be formed, 

 yielding increased effects ; but in these experiments, though 

 theoretically interesting, so small a fraction of the power, 

 actually at work in the combustion, has been thrown into an 

 electrical form, that there is no immediate promise of a 

 practical result. 



The quantity of the electrical current, as measured by the 

 quantity of matter it acts upon in its different phenomenal 

 effects, is proportionate to the quantity of chemical action 

 which generated it ; and its intensity, or power of overcoming 

 resistance, is also proportionate to the intensity of chemical 

 affinity when a single voltaic pair is employed, or to the 

 number of reduplications when the well-known instrument 

 called the voltaic battery is used. 



The mode in which the voltaic current is increased in 



