elite of European philosophers, to explain personally his great invention, av.d 

 expound his views as to its probable uses and powers as an instrument of sci- 

 entific research. Volta accepted the proffered honor, and, in 1801, attended at 

 three meetings of the Academy of Sciences, at which he explained his theory 

 of contact, and developed his views respecting the Voltaic, or, as he called it> 

 electro-motive, action of different metals upon each other. Among the audience 

 at these memorable meetings was NAPOLEON himself, and none present ap- 

 peared to appreciate more justly the vastness of the power which was on that 

 occasion placed in the hands of the experimental philosopher. 



When the report of the committee on the subject was read, the FIRST CONSUL 

 proposed that the rules of the Academy, which produced some delay in con- 

 ferring its honors, be suspended, and that the gold medal be immediately 

 awarded to Volta, as a testimony of the gratitude of the philosophers of France 

 for his discovery. This proposition being carried by acclamation, the hero of 

 a hundred fields, who never did things by halves, and who was filled with a 

 prophetic enthusiasm as to the powers of the pile, ordered two thousand crowns 

 to be sent to Volta the same day from the public treasury, to defray the ex- 

 penses of his journey.* He also founded an annual medal, of the value of 

 three thousand francs, for the best experiment on the electric fluid, and a prize 

 of sixty thousand francs to him who should give electricity or magnetism, by 

 his researches, an impulse comparable to that which it received from the dis- 

 coveries of Franklin and Volta. 



The relation in which the Voltaic pile stood in reference to the Leyden jar 

 and electrical machines now began to be perceived. In the latter apparatus a 

 great quantity of electricity is accumulated on the surfaces of the jar, and held 

 there in equilibrium, the positive fluid on one side of the glass, and the nega- 

 tive on the other. When the communication is made between the two surfaces, 

 a torrent of the fluid precipitates itself instantaneously along the line of com- 

 munication, and the electrical equilibrium is re-established in an interval of time 

 so short as to be inappreciable. A sudden, instantaneous, and violent effect is 

 produced on whatever bodies may be exposed to the transit of this electric fluid. 

 On the other hand, the Voltaic pile is a generator of electricity, which supplies 

 to its opposite poles the two fluids, the positive and the negative electricity, in a 

 continued, gentle, and regulated current. It discharges it not suddenly or in- 

 stantaneously, or with uncontrollable and irresistible violence, but with gentle, 

 moderate, continued, and regulated action. What takes place in the Leyden 

 jar in an interval so brief as to render observation of its progress, or examina- 

 tion of its successive effects, impossible, is with the pile spread over as long 

 an interval as the observer may desire. Besides this, the effects themselves 

 consequent on the two modes of action are different. That which in mechan- 

 ical phenomena is effected by a violent blow or concussion, is not more differ- 

 ent from the effects of a long-continued action of a uniform accelerating force 

 or a constant pressure, than are the effects of the common electrical discharge 

 from those of the currents of electricity propagated between the poles of the 

 pile. 



The physiological effects of electricity exhibited under these different forms, 

 differ in a manner which might be anticipated from these modifications in the 

 transmission of the electric fluid. If the wires proceeding from the opposite 

 poles, and conducting the contrary currents of fluid, be taken in the hands, the 

 sudden and violent shock of the Leyden jar is no longer felt. It is replaced by 

 a continued convulsion in the arms and shoulders, which does not cease so long 

 as the wires are held. 



Arago, Eloge de Volta, p. 42. 



