Dr. Hare's Description of Voltaic Series, &fc, 287 



bottom of a box to receive the pairs, the grooves are easily made to 

 correspond. The box being heated as hot as the wood will bear and 

 soaked with melted suet or beeswax, the pairs are slid into the 

 grooves. 



To correspond with the outside of the box containing the pairs, 

 the inside of one of two troughs placed side by side, as are those rep- 

 resented in the engraving, having been prepared, the box must be 

 cemented therein by a mixture of one part of suet and seven of rosin. 

 The wood should be heated as hot as possible without taking fire. 

 This may be effected by shavings, by a chauffer of coals, by a flam- 

 beau made with spirit of wine, spirit of turpentine, or coal naphtha. 

 By the consequent rarefaction, the pores being nearly vacated of the 

 moisture and air with which they are naturally occupied, on cooling 

 they will imbibe the cement which should be fused and introduced 

 while the heat is at a maximum. 



A box without grooves, otherwise similar to that made for the 

 pairs, should be made for the other compartment. Both boxes 

 should be heated on the outside and soaked with cement, and intro- 

 duced into their places, while hot enough to keep the cement fluid. 

 In troughs thus constructed I have not found the leakage, of which 

 Mr. Faraday complains, to take place. In fact I have made troughs 

 without an inside box, which are made tight simply by tongueing 

 the boards, he. putting them together with screws and white lead, 

 and then cementing them on the inside as above described.* 



I propose in future to have the plates of an oblique form upon one 

 of their sides, so as to be of a lesser width at bottom than at the upper 

 edge. By these means they may easily be slid into their grooves, 

 or removed for cleansing. The use of a membrane, as in Daniel's 

 ingenious apparatus, to prevent deposition on the plates, may be 

 found advantageous, where a permanent supply of voltaic electricity 

 is desirable, and is hypothetically highly interesting, as verifying 

 some of those anticipations arising from Faraday's researches, which 

 led to its construction ; but yet I hold that expedient to be inappli- 

 cable, in those constructions of voltaic series, which are otherwise 

 most convenient, efficient and compact. 



Of the apparatus which I have latterly used, and which I call the 

 Cruickshank deflagrator, I send engravings and descriptions, in some 



* The common wood screw is not sufficient. I used screw bolts and nuts, the 

 latter let into the wood. In bringing up the joints a powerful joiner's clamp press 

 was employed. 



