MR. GROVE ON THE GAS VOLTAIC BATTERY. 
109 
chemical action, a force without consumption, I cannot but regard it as inconsistent 
with the whole tenor of voltaic facts and general experience. 
Another point of theory suggested by the gas battery, is the relation of latent 
heat in the different cells of the battery and voltameter. According to our received 
theory of caloric, oxygen and hydrogen cannot assume the gaseous from the liquid 
state without rendering sensible heat latent. Now, as in the gas battery the gases 
evolved from the liquid in the voltameter must require and absorb precisely as much 
heat as is set free by the gases becoming liquid in each cell, it may be a curious 
subject of future inquiry (an inquiry which that beautiful instrument, the thermo- 
multiplier, will materially aid) to ascertain whether the heat absorbed in the vol- 
tameter be exacted from surrounding bodies, or whether it be supplied by the action 
of the battery itself, i. e. as the chemical force in the voltameter is conversely equiva- 
lent to that in each cell of the battery, and the calorific force at the voltameter is 
also the converse equivalent of that in each battery cell, whether there is the same 
mutual dependence of the latter as of the former forces. The action in the volta- 
meter of ordinary batteries would argue strongly against the proposition, that the 
heat is exacted from surrounding bodies, as it is well known that water when elec- 
trolysed has its temperature rather increased than diminished ; and I have found, 
when decomposing water with the nitric acid battery at a rate of 150 cubic inches a 
minute, a very considerable augmentation of temperature in the liquid subjected to 
decomposition, so much so, that if the quantity was not considerable, it was heated 
to ebullition. Much of this adventitious heat may have arisen from the restriction of 
the circuit by the voltameter plates and connecting wires, but if the gas battery be 
supposed to supply exactly sufficient heat, or (to use a license of expression) to con- 
vert electricity into sufficient heat to satisfy the demands of the expanding gases, — 
each battery cell being able by the condensation of its respective gases to afford this 
supply, — a rise of temperature ought to be perceptible in the whole battery equal to 
the heat produced by the condensation of gases in all the cells, minus that of one 
cell. I have not as yet been able to detect any elevation of temperature due to the 
action of the gas battery, not having in my possession any instrument capable of 
detecting such delicate thermoscopic effects. I am, therefore, the more anxious to 
offer the point for the consideration of those who may have such instruments at their 
command ; and here for the present I leave the gas battery and its theory. 
London Institution, 
March \2th, 1843. 
Postscript, July 7th. 
The length of time which has elapsed between the communication and printing of 
this paper, as it has enabled me to procure the apparatus fig. 8, will I trust be deemed 
Q 2 
