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THEOUT OK GAEVAMS.M. 
]05 
00 great and complicated to b« so distinctly analysed as in the 
iriginal pile. tricity, ard 
Returning to the column — a certain degree of moisture, 
jowever, is necessary to the electromotion, in order to give a 
lufficient conducting faculty to the pieces of paper between 
;he pairs of metals. This I have found by experience ; for, 
having dried every part of a column, placing them near the 
fire of my chimney when I remounted it in that state, the elec- 
tromotion had almost ceased in it ; but having dismounted it, 
and laid all the separate pieces on a table, where they remained 
the whole night, acquiring thus the degree of moisture of the 
air in the room, when it was made up again, and llie same 
degree of electromotion was restored. 
After having demonstrated, and I think without possibility 
of doubt, from the electromotion in the electric column, and 
from the phenomena of the galvanic pile itself, that in the latter 
that motion does not depend on any chemical agency, I come 
to explain the great improvements made by Mr. Singer in my 
joriginal apparatus. This explanation, Sir, is the more neces- - 
nary for your readers, since I could not find myself, in his 
idescription his column, the causes of the great increase of 
its effect ; especially as he mentions only one, of two essen- 
ttial changes he has made, and of this I shall first treat. 
This change is expressed in a few words of the following 
{passage. “The combination which has been here employed, 
(Consists in two disks of paper interposed between each pair of 
1 metals, one disk being pasted on the silver, and the other disk 
(unconnected with either metals.” The great improvement 
(which I am now considering, is that disk of paper unconnected 
(with either metals ; and surely none but those who have often 
■mounted columns, can understand the effect of that circum- 
I stance without an explanation. 
This apparatus is unavoidably much handled in its construc- 
tion, because the tine and the coppered, or silvered paper 
disks are to be set together so as to form on the outside a 
I smooth cylinder. But by this operation many paper disks ar* 
brought outwards into contact with one another; and wherever 
this 
