128 THEORY OF GALVANISM. 



and other experimentalists, where a few large 

 plates were employed, and where a diluted acid 

 was interposed between them, may be considered 

 as precisely the reverse of De Luc's column. Here 

 very slight marks of common electricity were ma- 

 nifested, while the most powerful galvanic effects 

 were produced. 



Proper The general conclusion that I should form on 



action of the subject is, that part of the effects usually pro- 

 the pile, (Ceding from the pile are purely electrical, and do 

 not, in any degree, depend upon a chemical change 

 in the state of the metals. I conceive it to be a 

 doubtful point in what way this electrical action is 

 induced, because, for the reasons which have been 

 already given, I do not think that the experiments 

 of Volta, and the others that have been supposed 

 to coincide with them, are applicable to the state 

 of things as they exist in the pile ; nor, if we were 

 to admit them, would they account for the con- 

 tinued evolution of fresh portions of electricity ;* 

 or -explain, why the disturbance of the electric 

 fluid, or the electro-motion, as it is styled, is not 

 counteracted by the conductors that are connected 

 Galvanic with the metals. As to the proper galvanic effects 

 of the pile, I con side rthem to be always immedi- 

 ately caused by the chemical action of the fluid 

 upon the metals ; and that, in proportion to the 

 extent of this action, as depending upon the quan- 

 tity of surface exposed, or the nature of the fluid 



* Davy's Elements of Chemical Philosophy, p. 174. 



