Mr.. Children's Account of some Experiments , &c. 33 
Experiment 1. Eighteen inches of platina wire, of -^ Q th of 
an inch diameter, were completely fused in about twenty 
seconds. 
Exp. 2. Three feet of the same wire were heated to a bright 
red, visible by strong day-light. 
Exp. 3. Four feet of the same wire were rendered very hot; 
but not perceptibly red by day-light. In the dark, it would 
probably have appeared red throughout. 
Exp. 4. Charcoal burnt with intense brilliancy. 
Exp. 5. On iron wire, of about ~th of an inch diameter, 
the effect was strikingly feeble. It barely fused ten inches, 
and had not power to ignite three feet. 
Exp. 6 . Imperfect conductors were next submitted to the 
action of the battery, and barytes, mixed with the red oxyde 
of mercury, and made into a paste with pipe-clay and water, 
was placed in the circuit ; but neither on this, nor on any 
other similar substance was the slightest effect produced. 
Exp. 7. The gold leaves of the electrometer were not af- 
fected. 
Exp. 8. When the cuticle was dry, no shock was given by 
this battery, and even though the skin was wet, it was scarcely 
perceptible. 
Before I offer any observations on the inferences to be 
drawn from these experiments, I shall mention some others, 
performed, for the sake of comparison, with the foregoing, 
with an apparatus very different in size and number of plates, 
from the one just described. 
This second battery was precisely the Couronne des Tasses 
of Sig. Volta, consisting of two hundred pairs of plates, each 
about two inches square, placed in half pint pots of common 
mdcccix. F 
