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chemical action alone ; contrasting them with the numerous cases 

 given in the previous series, where contact without chemical action, 

 whether it be the contact of metal with metal, or with chemically 

 inactive electrolytes, can produce no voltaic current. 



The author then considers the sufficiency of chemical action to 

 account for all the phenomena of the pile. He shows that che- 

 mical action does actually evolve electricity ; that according as 

 chemical action diminishes or ceases, so the electrical current di- 

 minishes or ceases also ; that where the chemical action changes 

 from side to side, the direction of the current likewise changes with 

 it ; that where no chemical action occurs, no current is produced, 

 but that a current occurs the moment chemical action com- 

 mences ; and that when the chemical action which has, or could 

 have produced a current, is, as it were, reversed or undone, the cur- 

 rent is reversed or undone likewise ; that is, it occurs in the oppo- 

 site direction, in exact correspondence with the direction taken by 

 the transferred anions and cathions. The accordance of the che- 

 mical theory of excitation with these phenomena is considered by 

 the author as of the strictest kind. 



The phenomena of thermo-electricity are considered by some 

 philosophers as affording proofs of the efficacy of mere metallic 

 contact in exciting an electric current. The author proceeds, there- 

 fore, to examine these phenomena in relation to such an action, and 

 arrives at the conclusion, that they, in fact, disprove the existence of 

 such a power. In thermo-electricity, the metals have an order which 

 is so different from that belonging to them in any electrolyte, that it 

 appears impossible to consider their succession, in any case, as due 

 to any mutual effect of the metals on each other, common to both 

 modes of excitation. Thus, in the thermo-circuit, the electric cur- 

 rent is, at the hot place, from silver to antimony, and from bismuth 

 to silver ; but in a voltaic series, including dilute sulphuric or nitric 

 acids, or strong nitric acid, or solution of potash, the electric current 

 is from silver to both antimony and bismuth ; whilst if the 

 yellow sulphuret of potash be used, it is from both antimony and 

 bismuth to silver ; or if the hydro-sulphuret of potash be used, it is 

 from bismuth to silver, and from silver to antimony ; and, finally, 

 if strong muriatic acid be used, it is precisely the reverse, that is, from 

 antimony to silver, and from silver to bismuth. The inconsistency 

 of these results with the contact theory is then insisted on and 

 farther developed. 



The last section of this series is on the improbability of there ex- 

 isting any such force as the assumed contact force. The author 

 contends that it is against all natural analogy and probability that 

 two particles which, being placed in contact, have by their mutual 

 action acquired opposite electrical states, should be able to discharge 

 these states one to the other, and yet remain in the same state they 

 were in at the first, that is, entirely unchanged in every point by 

 what has previously taken place ; or, that the force which has enabled 

 two particles by their mutual action to attain a certain state, should 

 not be sufficient to make them keep that state. To admit such ef- 



