90 Notice of Active and Extinct Volcanos. 



bability, that those Voltaic powers which we hnoiv to exist— 

 whose^action we can command, and whose effects* havingbeen 

 first observed, within the memory of the present generation, 

 now fill us with astonishment, are constantly active in pro- 

 ducing the phenomena of earthquakes and volcanos. 



Arrangements of metals and fluids are the common means 

 by which we evolve this wonderful power, in our laborato- 

 ries ; and it would seem that nothing more than juxta posi- 

 tion, in a certain order, is necessary to the effect. Even sub- 

 stances apparently dry and inert, with respect to each other, 

 will produce a permanent, and in proportion to the means 

 employed, a powerful effect ; as in the columns of De Luc 

 and Zamboni. It would seem indeed, that metals and fluids 

 are not necessary to the effect. Arrangements of almost 

 any substances that are of different natures, will cause the 

 evolution of this power. Whoever has witnessed the over- 

 whelming brilliancy and intense energy of the great galva- 

 nic combinations, especially of the deflagrator of Dr. Hare, 

 and considers how very trifling, in extent, are our largest ar- 

 rangements of apparatus, compared with those natural ar- 

 rangements of earths, salts, metals and fluids, which we know 

 to exist in the earth, in circumstances similar to those, which, 

 in our laboratories, are effectual in causing this power to ap- 

 pear, will not be slow to believe, that it may be in the earth, 

 perpetually evolved and perpetually renewed ; and now mi- 

 tigated, suppressed or revived, according to circumstances 

 influencing the particular state of things at particular places. 



In our laboratories, we see intense light, irresistible heat, 

 magnetism in great energy, and above all, a decomposing 

 power, which commands every element and every proximate 

 principle, in every compound. 



Sir Humphrey Davy, after discovering that the supporters 

 of combustion and the acids, were all evolved at the positive 

 pole, and the combustibles and metals, and their oxidated 

 products, at the negative — proved, that even the firmest 

 rocks and stones could not resist this power, their immediate 

 principles and elements being seperated by its energy. The 

 decomposition of the alkalies, earths, and other metallic 

 oxids being a direct and now familiar effect of Voltaic en- 

 ergy — their metals being set at liberty, and being combusti- 

 ble both in air and water — elastic agents produced by this 

 power, and rarefied by heat, being also attendant on 

 these decompositions, it would seem that the first principles 

 are fully established by experiment, and that nothing is hy- 



