THE STORY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCIENCE 



Volta developed an apparatus composed of two metals 

 joined together and acted on by chemicals, which ap- 

 peared to accumulate or store up the galvanic influence, 

 whatever it might be. The effect could be accentuated 

 by linking together several such " piles " into a " bat- 

 tery." 



This invention took the world by storm. Nothing 

 like the enthusiasm it created in the philosophic world 

 had been known since the invention of the Leyden jar, 

 more than half a century before. Within a few weeks 

 after Yolta's announcement, batteries made according 

 to his plan were being experimented with in every im- 

 portant laboratory in Europe. The discovery was made 

 in March. Early in May two Englishmen, Messrs. 

 Nicholson and Carlyle, practising with the first battery 

 made in their country, accidentally discovered the de- 

 composition of water by the action of the pile. And 

 thus in its earliest infancy the new science of " galvan- 

 ism " had opened the way to another new science elec- 

 tro-chemistry. 



As the century closed, half the philosophic world was 

 speculating as to whether "galvanic influence" were a 

 new imponderable or only a form of electricity ; and the 

 other half was eagerly seeking to discover what new 

 marvels the battery might reveal. The least imagina- 

 tive man could see that here was an invention that 

 would be epoch-making, but the most visionary dreamer 

 could not" even vaguely adumbrate the real measure of 

 its importance. Hitherto electricity had been only a 

 laboratory aid or a toy of science, with no suggestion of 

 practical utility beyond its doubtful application in medi- 

 cine ; in future, largely as the outgrowth of Yolta's dis- 

 covery, it was destined to become a great economic 



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