Cuare. VII., § 2.] 
But three years seem to have elapsed before he was 
led to the invention of the pile, although it is in truth 
nothing more than the same arrangement frequently 
repeated. In March 1800 he wrote from Como a 
letter to Sir Joseph Banks, which was printed in the 
Philosophical Transactions for the same year, and in 
which he describes the Pile and the Couronne des Tas- 
ses, The former consisted of 20 or more copper or sil- 
ver coins interlaid with as many disks of tin or zinc, 
and others of paper or leather, soaked in water or 
brine. The same order of sequence of the three elements 
was carefully preserved throughout ; and the whole 
formed a vertical pile or rowleau. Several such piles 
could beused together. Theeffects were—1.Theready 
excitement of the common electrometer by the aid of 
the condenser; 2. The production of smart shocks 
through the hands and arms, similar to those pro- 
duced by the torpedo; 3. The production of vivid 
sensations of taste, of sound in the ears, and of flashes 
of light. There was nothing new in these effects (it 
may be seen) except that their intensity was much 
exalted, and the verification of the metallic theory 
was thereby rendered more easy. Volta attributes 
ELECTRICITY—VOLTA—-NICHOLSON AND CARLISLE. 
965 
whilst minute bubbles of gas were evolved from the 
other, to the amount of th of a cubic inch in 24 
hours. Being mixed with an equal quantity of com- 
mon air, and a lighted waxed thread being applied, 
it exploded. It was, therefore, concluded to be hy- 
drogen derived from the decomposition of the water, 
whose oxygen had combined with the brass of the 
positive wire! Nicholson, it appears, was well ac- 
quainted with Fabbroni’s writings on the relation of 
galvanism to chemical action ; and in the very paper 
where he describes Volta’s pile and his own discovery, 
he expresses his astonishment that Volta should 
have taken no notice of Fabbroni’s results, or of the 
rapid oxidation of zine in contact with other metals 
which appears in the pile, and which had been no- 
ticed by Fabbroni in every case where two metals 
differing in oxidability are placed in water, and 
in contact with each other. The experiment was 
repeated at Vienna, and then by Volta himself, who 
called attention to an experiment by three Dutch 
chemists, Paets, Van Troostwyk, and Dieman, who 
had decomposed water by common electricity in 
1789. 
ee ee eee ee 
the action to the effect of ‘* simple contact” of the me- 
tals, allowing to the fluid element no other share than 
that of conducting sufficiently, but not too rapidly, 
the impulse thus excited. Having an eye probably to 
Fabbroni’s opinions, he insists on the superior effects 
obtained with saline and alcaline fluids, and with hot 
in preference to cold fluids, being explicable solely 
Volta, himself, however, did not enter with zeal 755.) 
upon this new career; he even left to others the Volta re- 
task of improving the form and increasing the energy abr Sap 
of his battery, which was first done by the useful from Na- 
arrangement of Cruickshank. He was now ap- poleon, and 
proaching his 60th year, and seems to have been ‘o™ the 
TET f 
not indisposed to pass an old age of ease, and to re- cane 
by their increased conducting power. He justly de- 
scribes the effects of the pile as similar to those of 
an immense electric battery with a very feeble charge; 
only the action is continuous, instead of intermittent. 
the electrical effects of the pile, they used a drop of 
water ‘‘to make sure the contacts’? upon the upper 
plate. Carlisle first observed a disengagement of 
gas round the wire which the water moistened. 
Nicholson suspected it to be hydrogen, and pro- 
posed to break the circuit by enclosing water in a 
tube between the two wires. This was accordingly 
done on the 2d May 1800, within a month of the 
arrival in England of the first four pages of Volta’s 
letter to Sir J. Banks, which preceded the remainder 
by a considerable space of time. The brass wire in 
the water tube, which was connected with the posi- 
tive end of the pile, became tarnished and black, 
ceive in tranquillity the marks of distinction which 
were showered upon him. In 1801 Napoleon called 
him to Paris, attended the meeting of the Institute 
where Volta explained his theory of the pile, caused 
(753.) But the invention had scarcely become known in to be voted to him on the spot a gold medal, and 
London when the importance of the pile, as an in- sent him home with a valuable present in money. 
strument of discovery, was keenly appreciated in He was then made a Senator, finally a Count; he was 
consequence of one capital discovery. also made an Associate of the Institute in 1802. 
(754.) Nicuouson, a good electrician and chemist, and No scientific discovery ever excited the enthusiasm 
eae CaruisLx (afterwards Sir Anthony), a medical man, of Napoleon to the same degree as that of the 
fisle obtain were the first in England to construct one of Volta’s Pile. He even extemporized a theory of life from 
chemical piles. It consisted first of 17, afterwards of 36, half- its phenomena, comparing the vertebral column 
es crowns, with as many disks of zinc and of paste- in man to the pile, the bladder being the posi- 
ite. * poard, soaked in salt water. Experimenting upon tive and the liver the negative pole. An eminent 
medical chemist, Dr Prout, has seriously main- 
tained a somewhat similar hypothesis. The fa- 
vours lavished on Volta excited, perhaps, some jea- 
lousy amongst the French philosophers; for it is 
remarkable how little was added in France to the 
progress of the revived science of electricity. The 
French ruler, however, had himself in some measure 
to blame for this; for the rigid exclusion of foreign, 
and especially of English publications, for a number 
of years, was felt to be highly injurious, and was in 
vain remonstrated against by Berthollet and others. 
Volta survived his great invention above a quar- 
56. 
ter of a century. He died 5th March 1827, aged 82. Hh doth. 
1 Nicholson’s Journal (series in quarto), iv., 182. 
