Hare's Calorimotor. 413 



Art. XIX. A J^ew Theory of Galvanism, supported by 

 some Experiments and Observations made by means of 

 the Calorimotor, a new Galvanic Instrument. Read 

 before the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia,^ 

 by Robert Hare, M. D. Professor of Chemistry in 

 the Medical Department of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, and Member of several Learned Societies. 



(With ail Engraving.) 



X HAVE for some time been of opinion that the principle 

 extricated by the Voltaic pile is a compound of caloric and 

 electricity, both being original and collateral products of 

 Galvanic action. 



The grounds of this conviction and some recent experi- 

 ments coniirming it, are stated in the following paper. 



It is well known that heat is liberated by the Voltaic appa- 

 ratus, in a manner and degree which has not been imitated by 

 means of mechanical electricity ; and that the latter, while it 

 strikes at a greater distance, and pervades conductors with 

 much greater speed, can with difficulty be made to effect the 

 slightest decompositions. Wollaston, it is true, decomposed 

 water by means of it ; but the experiment was performed of 

 necessity on a scale too minute to permit of his ascertaining, 

 whether there were any divellent polar attractions exercised 

 towards the atoms, as in the case of the pile. The result was 

 probably caused by mechanical concussion, or that process by 

 which the particles of matter are dispersed when a battery is 

 discharged through them. The opinion of Dr. Thomson, 

 that the fluid of the pile is in quantity greater, in intensity 

 less, than that evolved by the machine, is very inconsistent 

 with the experiments of the chemist above mentioned, who, 

 before he could effect the separation of the elements of water 

 by mechanical electricity, was obliged to confine its emission 



* In whose Journal it was ordered to be printed, but, to prevent dela)', it 

 was pubhshed, by the Author, in a separate paper, and forwarded by him to the 

 Editor of this Journal. 



Vol. I. ...No. 4. 32 



