CHAP. VII., 2.] ELECTRICITY VOLTA NICHOLSON AND CARLISLE. 



167 



But three years seem to have elapsed before he was 

 led to the invention of the pile, although it is in truth 

 nothing more than the same arrangement frequently 

 repeated. In March 1800 he wrote from Como a 

 letter to Sir Joseph Banks, which was printed in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for the same year, and in 

 which he describes the Pile and the Couronne des Tas- 

 ses. The former consisted of 20 or more copper or sil- 

 ver coins interlaid with as many disks of tin or zinc, 

 and others of paper or leather, soaked in water or 

 brine. The same order of sequence of the three elements 

 was carefully preserved throughout ; and the whole 

 formed a vertical pile or rouleau. Several such piles 

 could be used together. Theeffects were 1: The ready 

 excitement of the common electrometer by the aid of 

 the condenser ; 2. The production of smart shocks 

 through the hands and arms, similar to those pro- 

 duced by the torpedo ; 3. The production of vivid 

 sensations of taste, of sound in the ears, and of flashes 

 of light. There was nothing new in these effects (it 

 may be seen) except that their intensity was much 

 exalted, and the verification of the metallic theory 

 was thereby rendered more easy. Volta attributes 

 the action to the effect of " simple contact" of the me- 

 tals, allowing to the fluid element no other share than 

 that of conducting sufficiently, but not too rapidly, 

 the impulse thus excited. Having an eye probably to 

 Fabbroni's opinions, he insists on the superior effects 

 obtained with saline and alcaline fluids, and with hot 

 in preference to cold fluids, being explicable solely 

 by their increased conducting power. He justly de- 

 scribes the effects of the pile as similar to those of 

 an immense electric battery with a very feeble charge; 

 only the action is continuous, instead of intermittent. 

 (753.) But the invention had scarcely become known in 

 London when the importance of the pile, as an in- 

 strument of discovery, was keenly appreciated in 

 consequence of one capital discovery. 



(754.) NICHOLSON, a good electrician and chemist, and 

 fll h lson CARLISLE (afterwards Sir Anthony), a medical man, 

 lisle obtain were the first in England to construct one of Volta's 

 shemical piles. It consisted first of 17, afterwards of 36, half- 

 crowns, with as many disks of zinc and of paste- 

 board, soaked in salt water. Experimenting upon 

 the electrical effects of the pile, they used a drop of 

 water " to make sure the contacts" upon the upper 

 plate. Carlisle first observed a disengagement of 

 gas round the wire which the water moistened. 

 Nicholson suspected it to be hydrogen, and pro- 

 posed to break the circuit by enclosing water in a 

 tube between the two wires. This was accordingly 

 done on the 2d May 1800, within a month of the 

 arrival in England of the first four pages of Volta's 

 letter to Sir J. Banks, which preceded the remainder 

 by a considerable space of time. The brass wire in 

 the water tube, which was connected with the posi- 

 tive end of the pile, became tarnished and black, 



effects 

 from the 

 pile. 



whilst minute bubbles of gas were evolved from the 

 other, to the amount of T \th of a cubic inch in 2J 

 hours. Being mixed with an equal quantity of com- 

 mon air, and a lighted waxed thread being applied, 

 it exploded. It was, therefore, concluded to be hy- 

 drogen derived from the decomposition of the water, 

 whose oxygen had combined with the brass of the 

 positive wire. 1 Nicholson, it appears, was well ac- 

 quainted with Fabbroni's writings on the relation of 

 galvanism to chemical action ; and in the very paper 

 where he describes Volta's pile and his own discovery, 

 he expresses his astonishment that Volta should 

 have taken no notice of Fabbroni's results, or of the 

 rapid oxidation of zinc in contact with other metals 

 which appears in the pile, and which had been no- 

 ticed by Fabbroni in every case where two metals 

 differing in oxidability are placed in water, and 

 in contact with each other. The experiment was 

 repeated at Vienna, and then by Volta himself, who 

 called attention to an experiment by three Dutch 

 chemists, Pacts. Van Troostwyk, and Dieman, who 

 had decomposed water by common electricity in 

 1789. 



Volta, himself, however, did not enter with zeal (755.) 

 upon this new career ; he even left to others the Volta re- 

 task of improving the form and increasing the energy ^t^ng 8 " 

 of his battery, which was first done by the useful f ro m Na- 

 arrangement of Cruickshank. He was now ap- poleon, and 

 proaching his 60th year, and seems to have been ,"1,^ . 



. . 6 * Institute of 



not indisposed to pass an old age or ease, and to re- France 



ceive in tranquillity the marks of distinction which 

 were showered upon him. In 1801 Napoleon called 

 him to Paris, attended the meeting of the Institute 

 where Volta explained his theory of the pile, caused 

 to be voted to him on the spot a gold medal, and 

 sent him home with a valuable present in money. 

 He was then made a Senator, finally a Count : he was 

 also made an Associate of the Institute in 1802. 

 No scientific discovery ever excited the enthusiasm 

 of Napoleon to the same degree as that of the 

 Pile. He even extemporized a theory of life from 

 its phenomena, comparing the vertebral column 

 in man to the pile, the bladder being the posi- 

 tive and the liver the negative pole. An eminent 

 medical chemist, Dr Prout, has seriously main- 

 tained a somewhat similar hypothesis. The fa- 

 vours lavished on Volta excited, perhaps, some jea- 

 lousy amongst the French philosophers ; for it is 

 remarkable how little was added in France to the 

 progress of the revived science of electricity. The 

 French ruler, however, had himself in some measure 

 to blame for this ; for the rigid exclusion of foreign, 

 and especially of English publications, for a number 

 of years, was felt to be highly injurious, and was in 

 vain remonstrated against by Berthollet and others. 



Volta survived his great invention above a quar- (756.) 

 ter of a century. He died 5th March 1827, aged 82. His death. 



Nicholson's Journal (series in quarto), iv., l? f 



