454 DAVY. 



nied by Volta, the author of the pile, and indeed of the 

 science which, like the continent of America, has borne 

 the name of another than the discoverer. This had 

 seemed probable from the presence being indispensable 

 of a liquid capable of decomposing one or other of the 

 metals, both supposed to be equally necessary to the 

 production of the electric stream. Davy's experi- 

 ments, which were numerous and admirably devised 

 and most laboriously conducted, now showed that the 

 presence of two metals was not required to provide 

 the electricity. One metal, and one other substance 

 separated from it, with a fluid acting upon either the 

 metal or the substance ; or a metal separating two fluids, 

 one of which acts upon it ; nay, one metal exposed to 

 the same fluid, but acted upon differently on its diffe- 

 rent sides or surfaces by the fluid's strength differing 

 on the different sides ; or one and the same metal 

 in different pieces plunged into the same fluid, at 

 an interval of time were all found to be combina- 

 tions which gave the galvanic (or voltaic) shock, the 

 same in kind, though varying in strength. In all 

 these cases, and in every production of electricity 

 by the voltaic process, the chemical action of a fluid 

 upon the metallic substance was a necessary conco- 

 mitant of the operation.* 



During the five following years Davy continued his 

 experiments ; and in the autumn of 1806 he commu- 

 nicated to the Royal Society hjs discovery of the con- 

 nexion between the different ends of the electric circle 



* Subsequent experiments have shown that the effect may be pro- 

 duced by other than metallic, or even carbonaceous bodies. 



