34 Mr. Children’s Account of some Experiments 
queen’s ware, and made active by some of the liquor used in 
exciting the large battery, to which was added a fresh portion 
of sulphuric acid, equal to about a quarter of a pint to a gallon. 
To state as shortly as possible the effects produced by this 
battery : 
Experiment 1. It decomposed potash and barytes readily. 
Exp. 2. It produced the metallization of ammonia with great 
facility. 
Exp. 3. It ignited charcoal vividly. 
Exp. 4. It caused considerable divergence of the gold leaves 
of the electrometer. 
Exp. 5. It gave a vivid spark, after being in action three 
hours. At the expiration of twenty-four hours, it retained 
sufficient power to metallize ammonia, and continued, with 
gradually decreasing energy, to produce the same effect, till 
the end of forty-one hours, when it seemed nearly exhausted. 
From the results of the foregoing experiments, which though 
simple and not numerous, I trust, are satisfactory ; we see 
Mr. Davy’s theory of the mode of action of the Voltaic 
battery confirmed : he says ( in his Paper on some Chemical 
Agencies of Electricity, Sect. 9. after having shewn the effect 
of induction to increase the electricity of the opposite plates), 
“ the intensity increases with the number , and the qua 7 itity with 
the extent of the series.” 
That this is so, the effects produced on the platina and iron 
wires, in the first and fifth experiments with the large battery, 
and the subsequent experiments on imperfect conductors, with 
the small apparatus, sufficiently prove. The platina wire being 
a perfect conductor, and not liable to be oxydated, presents 
no obstacle to the free passage of the electricities through it. 
