Biographical Notice of Alexander Volta, 71 



It is the union of all these couples^ which is called the vol' 

 taic pile, and which forms an apparatus capable of produ- 

 cing electricity with a force to which no one has been able 

 to find a limit, since there is none in the size and number of 

 the elements which can be thus brought together. 



Volta's theory of the pile, in which he attributes the elec- 

 tricity produced, solely to the contact; regarding liquids as 

 acting no other part than conductors, has been strongly at- 

 tacked, particularly by the English chemists. We will not 

 say with the author of the notice, that it may be rigorously 

 demonstrated that the oxidation occasioned by the liquid, is 

 only the effect, and not the cause of the electrical agent ; 

 we believe on the contrary, that if it is true, as Volta has 

 proved it, that the contact of the metals is necessary for the 

 production of this electricity, it is not less true also, that the 

 chemical action of the acids, or of the saline solutions upon 

 the metallic plates contributes much to the effect. But we 

 must also admit that the theory of the pile is far from being 

 perfect, and that we cannot hope to have a more satisfactory 

 one until the numerous and various effects of this admirable 

 instrument are better understood. 



Volta has shewn, as we have said before, that the agent 

 produced by the contact of two different bodies, possesses 

 all the properties of electricity, he shewed also, that this 

 agent accumulated in a much greater quantity at the two 

 poles or extremities of the pile, may produce all the effects 

 of the electricity of machines, such as attraction and repul- 

 sion, charging a Leyden bottle, &c. and in a word, it is 

 known that the accumulation at one of the poles is called 

 negative^ from negative or resinous electricity, and at the 

 other pole, it is called positive^ from positive or vitreous elec- 

 tricity. 



The discovery of the pile is important, not only because 

 it offers to us a new class of phenomena, and because 

 it furnishes a new mode of producing electricity ; — it is 

 especially important because it presents electricity to us 

 under a form until then unknown, and which renders this 

 agent capable of producing effects, some of which could 

 not before be obtained by the aid of common machines, 

 and others were not so strong and were always instantane- 

 ous, or not continual. We allude to the phenomena which 

 the pile presents, in uniting the two poles by a conductor, and 

 permitting the two accumulated electricities to reunite, and 

 form a current, which is found to be continual, on account 



