82 HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 



together ceases, while its electrical tension remains 

 for some time longer unimpaired. 



An interesting train of experiments is next 

 detailed, in which mercury was interposed between 

 the wires, and formed an amalgam with the sub- 

 stance which was intended to be decomposed : an 

 arrangement which we have already pointed out, 

 as having been employed by Sir H. Davy in his 

 decomposition of the proper earths. They repeated 

 the experiments of this philosopher on ammonia, 

 and they formed the amalgam with mercury, 

 which he conceived was composed of this sub- 

 stance with the metallic basis of ammonia; but 

 they differ from him in their idea of its constitu- 

 tion, and suppose that there is no evidence of the 

 existence of the metal of the volatile alkali, al- 

 though the analogy of the fixed alkalies offers so 

 powerful an argument in its favour. But it does 

 not belong to my present subject to give any far- 

 ther account of the chemical effects produced by 

 the apparatus. 



DC LUC'S While Sir H. Davy was pursuing, with so much 

 the pHe, success, his interesting researches into the electro- 

 l09 * chemical action of bodies upon each other, De Luc 

 undertook to investigate the nature of the galvanic 

 pile, and to examine the mode of its operation. 

 After some animadversions upon the hypothesis of 

 the inherent electric energies of bodies, which con- 

 stitute the origin of the train of phenomena that 

 are connected with the pile, he proceeds to dissect 



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