5t GALVANIC ELECTRICITY. 



order, each composed of ten double plates, arranged in ce Us of por 

 celani, and rniituinin^ in i;ic!i plate thirty-two square inches; w 

 that the whole number of double plates is 200O, and the whole sur- 

 face 128,000 square inches. This battery when the cells wrre 

 filled with sixty parts of water mixed with one part of nitric acid, 

 and one part of the sulphuric acid, afforded a series of brilliant and 

 impressive effects. When pieces of charcoal about an inch long 

 . and one-sixth of an inch in diameter were brought near each other 

 (within the thirtieth part or fortieth part of an inch), a bright 

 spark was produced, and more than half the volume of the char, 

 coal became ignited to whiteness ; and by withdrawing the points 

 from each other, a constant discharge took place through the heated 

 air, in a space equal at least to four inches, producing a most bril- 

 liant ascending arch of light, broad, and conical in form in the 

 middle. When any substance was introduced into this arch it in. 

 stantly became ignited ; platina melted as readily in it as wax in the 

 flame of a common candle : quartz, the sapphire, magnesia, lime, 

 all entered into fusion; fragments of diamond, and points of char, 

 coal and plumbago, rapidly disappeared, and seemed to evaporate 

 in it, even when the connexion was made in a receiver exhausted by 

 the air-pump ; but there was no evidence of their having previously 

 undergone fusion. 



When the communication between the points positively and ne- 

 gatively electrified was made in air, rarefied in the receiver of the 

 air-pump, the distance at which the discharge took place increased 

 as the exhaustion was made ; and when the atmosphere in the vessel 

 supported only one.fourth of an inch of mercury in the barometri- 

 cal cage, the sparks passed through a space of nearly half an inch ; 

 and by withdrawing the points from each other, the discharge was 

 made through six or seven inches, producing a most beautiful corus- 

 cation of purple light, the charcoal became intensely ignited, and 

 some plvttina wire attached to it fused with brilliant scintillations, 

 and fell in large globules upon the plate of the pump. All the 

 pliaenotm-na of chemical changes were produced with intense rapi- 

 dity by this combination. When the points of charcoal were 

 brought near each other in nonconducting fluids, such as oils, ether, 

 and oxy muriate compounds, brilliant sparks occurred, and elastic 

 matter was rapidly generated : and such was the intensity of the 

 flectricity, that sparks were produced, even in good imperfect con- 

 ductors, inch as the nitric and sulphuric acids. 



[Editor. Pantologia. 



