THEORY OF GALVANISM. 



tions. That the electric and galvanic effects of 

 the pile bear no proportion to each other, that one 

 may exist in a great degree while the other is 

 scarcely apparent, is rendered evident from the 

 experiments of the late Mr. Singer. In examin- singer's ex- 

 ing the power of different kinds of fluids inter- P< 

 posed between the plates, he observed, that al- 

 though some of the effects were rendered more 

 powerful by employing a solution of salt, yet the 

 electrometer was not more effected than with 

 simple water. He even asserts, that in many 

 trials on a very extensive scale, for example, with 

 1000 pairs of metals, he has " found the electri- 

 cal effects greatest when the chemical effects have 

 been least." He relates other facts of a similar 

 kind, which appear to place this matter beyond all 

 doubt, and to establish a decisive difference be- 

 tween these two operations of the instrument.* 



De Luc's experiments confirm and illustrate this De LUC'S 

 view of the subject ; for they not only show this 

 want of proportion between the two effects, but 

 they enable us to separate them from each other. 

 In his second dissection of the pile, we have a 

 powerful electrical instrument, but one which does 

 not produce galvanic effects ; and the same may 

 be said of his electric column, which exhibits none 

 of the phenomena that we exclusively refer to gal- 

 vanism. On the contrary, some of those combi- 

 nations which have been made by Mr. Children, 



* Singer's Elem. p. 330. 



