THEORY OF GALVANISM. 
259 
not universally to the nature of the particles themselves, which 
produce our sensations. But though this manner of regarding 
the facts appears to us the most natural and simple, we cannot 
but approve the wise reserve of M. Berard, by which he has 
governed his writing, and has avoided any decided conclusions 
upon questions, respecting which experiment has not yet 
afforded any determinate results. 
The class has attended with pleasure to the detail of these Recommemla- 
, , , lion to the 
interesting experiments, when they were presented dv the c i asg> 
author, on that day in which he shared with M. Delaroche the 
prize, proposed for the specific heats of the gases. W e submit 
to the class, that they should confirm by their approbation this 
new and valuable wmrk, and we consider the same as very 
worthy of being printed in the collection of Memoires desSavans 
etrangers. 
(Signed) BERTBOLLET, 
CHAPTAL and BIOT, Commissaries. 
VI. 
On the Theories of the Excitement of Galvanic Electricity • ly 
William Henry, M.D. F. R. S. & c *. 
S EVERAL theories have been framed to account for the 
origin of the electricity, w'bich is excited by the Galvanic 
pile, and by similar arrangements. Of these, the first in the 
order of time was proposed by the distinguished philosopherf to 
whom we are indebted for some of the earliest, and therefore 
the most difficult, steps in this department of science. The Experiment of 
hypothesis was suggested by a fact, which may be considered, nietalsVre^^ 1 
indeed, as fundamental to it. It had been observed by Mr # electrified by 
Bennet, so long ago as they'ear 1788, and afterwards confirmed contact ° 
by Volta himself, that electricity is excited by the simple appo- 
* Manchester Memoirs, II. N. Ser. 293. 
f Signor Volta, in Nicholson’s Journal, 8vo. i» 135.' 
sition 
