HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 25 



each glass having the zinc leg of one arc, and 

 the copper or silver leg of another arc, immersed 

 in the fluid. The zinc and copper legs are not 

 in contact, and they are always to be disposed in 

 the same situation with respect to each other, i. e. 

 one is to be always at the right hand, and the 

 other at the left. Volta named this apparatus, 

 the couronne des tasses. The operation of both 

 these instruments is precisely the same, and is 

 referred by the author to the new principle, 

 which he conceives he had discovered, by which 

 different metals, when placed in contact, destroy 

 the electric equilibrium, or, as he expresses it, 

 become movers of electricity, producing that elec- 

 tric motion which is supposed to be the primary 

 and essential cause of the galvanic action. 



The experiments which Volta performed with 

 the pile were almost exclusively confined to the 

 animal body; and he seems to have entertained no 

 idea of the important use to which it might be ap- 

 plied, as an instrument of chemical analysis. His 

 attention appears indeed to have been so totally 

 absorbed in the electrical action of the apparatus, 

 that he overlooked its other effects, and only no- 

 ticed, in a very cursory manner, the changes 

 which it induced upon the fluid. It is indeed a 

 little remarkable, that after making so curious a 

 discovery, he should have rested there, and not 

 have proceeded with the further prosecution of 

 the subject. It would be unjust not to acknow- 

 ledge, in the warmest terms, the obligation under 



