VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY

In order to understand how the electricity of each galvanic pair is accumulated in the pile, let C, fig. 4, be a plate of copper, or a negative element, communicating with the ground by a wire or chain, W. When a plate of zinc Z, or a positive element, of the same size, is placed above it, a decomposition of electricity will take place at the instant of contact; the negative electricity will pass into the copper and through the wire W into the ground; while the positive electricity will enter the zinc, and accumulate, till its tension, or the thickness of the electrical stratum, is a maximum which we shall call 1. If we were to make the zinc plate Z communicate with the ground by another wire, the positive electricity with which it is charged will be carried off like the negative electricity from the copper disc, and the electricity, set free by the contact of the two metals, would be carried off as soon as it is generated. By uniting the extremities of the two wires the electricities would be recomposed, and a continual circulation of electricity would take place. The disc of copper C, communicating with the ground as in the figure, and the zinc disc Z, having an electrical intensity equal to 1, let us place upon Z a wet disc D of card. The positive electricity will pass from Z to D till the tension of the electricity in D is equal to 1, a fresh supply arriving from the contact of the two metals. The same electrical state will continue when a second plate of copper, C², is placed above the disc D. But if we place a second plate of zinc, Z², it will acquire from the copper beneath it and the wet disc an electrical intensity equal to 1, and from its own action on the copper it will acquire another portion of electricity equal to 1, so that its electrical intensity will be 2. While this is going on, the negative electricity developed in the copper will be neutralised by the positive electricity which it possesses, and in the first pair, CZ, there will be a new development, by which the first zinc disc Z will be brought back to an intensity 1, as well as the disc D and the second copper C². Hence the second zinc disc, Z², can be in equilibrium only when it has an intensity double of that possessed by the first. In like manner the third zinc disc will have an intensity 3, the fourth 4, and so on, the fortieth having an intensity 40.

In the voltaic pile which we have now described, the negative, or copper pile, communicates with the earth, and the intensity of the positive electricity increases, at every pair, from 1 to 40. If we take another pile of similar dimensions, in which the zinc or positive pile communicates with the earth, then the intensity of the negative electricity will increase from 1 to 40. Let us now place these two poles together, so that the two poles in communication with the ground are supported by a wet disc of card, we shall have a pile of eighty pair of plates, in the middle of which the electricity is in its natural state, its intensity being there 0, while at one end there will be a positive pile whose intensity is 40, and at the other end a negative pile whose intensity is also 40.

In a voltaic pile thus insulated we have electricity of opposite kinds accumulated at its two poles, and of any intensity we choose. If we now place a wire in contact with one pole, and another wire in contact with the other, and bring their extremities together, we shall observe an electric spark. By separating them and again bringing them together, another spark will be seen, so that there is a continual current of fire passing from the one extremity or pole of the wire to the other.

If we now unite the two extremities of the two wires, so as to close the circuit, every thing will appear to be at rest, but, notwithstanding this state of apparent repose, the elec-

trical actions are still going on; the electrical fluid is decomposed in each pair of plates, and again recomposed in the conducting wires. In order to prove this, we have only to interpose a piece of slender wire between the extremities or poles of the conducting wires, when it will either become hot, or red hot, or white hot, or be fused, according as it is longer or shorter, or of a greater or a less diameter. In like manner, water, acids, and other compound substances are all decomposed when placed between the poles and the wires, so as to form part of the galvanic circuit.

In performing these experiments, and drawing from this Galvanic powerful agent all the electrical energy which it is calculated to yield, a great variety of apparatus has been employed. When a voltaic pile consists of many couples, their superincumbent weight presses all the water or other fluid from the discs of card or cloth, and thus injures the action of the pile. In order to avoid this, Volta introduced the "couronne des tasses," which is represented in fig. 5, where A, B, D, &c., are three or more glass vessels containing acidulated water or diluted sulphuric acid; the plates Z and C of zinc and copper, about two inches square, are soldered to the ends of a bent metallic wire, M, N, &c., and are immersed in the water in the vessels. About thirty of these cups are sufficient to give a shock. When the circuit is closed, by joining the ends of the wires W, W, gas is actively evolved at all the surfaces of the plates, but when the circuit is broken the evolution of gas ceases in the copper plate, and becomes less copious in the zinc.

A valuable modification of the "couronne des tasses," modified called the trough battery, was suggested by Dr Wilkinson of St. and Dr Babington. Plates of zinc and copper, about four inches square, are joined together in pairs, by being soldered at one point. The pairs of plates are then attached to a strip of well dried and varnished wood, A B, fig. 6, so that the whole can be placed in a trough, T T, made of earthenware or wood, with as many partitions as there are pairs of plates. When the trough is of earthenware the partitions are of the same substance, but if they are made of wood the partitions are made of glass. When diluted sulphuric acid is poured into the cells of the trough T T, the battery A B, is immersed in it, so that each pair shall be separated from the adjoining one by a partition of the trough. This apparatus has the great advantage of allowing us to clean or repair the plates, without pouring out the fluid, which can also be changed with great facility. The powerful voltaic battery, constructed for the Royal Institution by Mr Eastwick, under the direction of Sir H. Davy and M Children, is upon this plan. It consists of 2000 double plates, and its acting surface is 128,000 square inches. When a battery consists of a number of these troughs unit-

Voltaic Electricity. Voltaic ed together, the terminal plates of the adjacent troughs are Electricity. joined by slips of copper, which unite the zinc end of one trough with the copper end of the other.

The galvanic trough, as it is called, is shown in fig. 7,

as constructed by Mr Cruikshanks of Woolwich. Plates of zinc and copper CZ, CZ, &c., fig. 8, soldered together, are made to constitute the partitions of a trough, TT, of baked wood, by fixing them into grooves formed in its side, all the zinc surfaces being on one side and all the copper ones on the other. The spaces or cells between them are then filled with a solution of salt and water, or with diluted muriatic or sulphuric acid. Troughs of this description are very apt to get out of order from the warping of the wood by the action of the acid solution, from the cracking of the cement, and other causes which affect the condition of the cells. This trough was still farther improved by keeping the plates of zinc and copper separate as at Z, C, but united at their summits S, with a small ribbon of copper. Each of these double plates was then placed upon the earthenware or glass partitions of a trough like that in fig. 6.

Dr Wollaston found that the power of a galvanic battery was greatly increased, when each surface of the zinc plate was opposed to a surface of copper, and in 1815 he constructed on this principle what he calls an elementary galvanic battery. From a series of experiments, made for the purpose of ascertaining the most compendious form of apparatus, by which visible ignition might be shown, he found that a single plate of zinc, one inch square, when rightly mounted, was more than sufficient to ignite a wire of platina $\backslash frac\{3\}\{100\}$th of an inch in diameter, even when the acid is very diluted (fifty parts of water to one of sulphuric acid). "But for this purpose," he adds, "each surface of the zinc must have its counterpart of copper, or other metal, opposed to it; for when copper is opposed only to one face, the action on the posterior surface of the zinc is wasted to little or no purpose. The smallest battery that I formed of this construction consisted of a thimble without its top, flattened till its opposite sides were about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ths of an inch asunder. The bottom part was then nearly 1 inch wide, and the top about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ths, and as its length did not exceed $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ths of an inch, the plate of zinc to be inserted was less than $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th of an inch square."¹

The plan thus suggested by Dr Wollaston was employed by Mr Children in the construction of a magnificent battery, in which each plate presented a surface of 32 square feet; the plates being 6 feet long, and 2 feet 8 inches

broad. The plates are attached to a strong wooden frame, suspended by ropes and pulleys, which, being counterpoised, is easily lowered and elevated, so as to immerse the plates in, or raise them out of, the acid. The cells of the battery were twenty-one in number, and their united capacities 945 gallons.²

Berzelius found that the power of this battery was greatly increased by making the copper which envelops the zinc a cell or vessel for containing the liquid.

Having seen a new battery of Dr Wollaston's, constructed on a large scale by Newman, Mr Hart³ of Glass-battery. Mr Hart conceived the idea of adding sides and bottoms to the double copper plates, so as to make them form cells of themselves, for holding the acidulous liquid. In this way, each galvanic pair became a trio, consisting of two plates of copper enclosing one of zinc. The following is the method of constructing such a battery as given by Mr Hart:—

"The cells are formed by cutting the copper in the form represented by fig. 9; they are then folded up as seen in fig. 10, and the seams grooved. A drop of tin is run into

each lower corner, to render the cells perfectly tight, and at the same time to increase the positive state of the copper. Fig. 11 represents the zinc plate cast in the usual manner, and having a piece of screwed brass wire cast into the top of it, in order to suspend it by.

"Fig. 12 is a section of the battery, showing how the copper tail of the first cell is connected with the zinc plate of the second, and so on. This connection is rendered perfect by joining them with a drop of solder. The zinc plates are kept firm in their place in the cells by three small pieces of wood, in the same manner as in Dr Wollaston's battery; the whole are then fixed (by means of screw nuts fitted on the brass wires) to a bar of baked wood, previously well varnished. Fig. 13 represents the battery in its complete state.

"When the battery is small, two may be suspended on

one frame. When used for shocks, they may be arranged with the positive or negative poles together, and joined with wire to complete the circuit; but when employed for

¹ Annals of Philosophy, vol. vi. p. 210.

² Edin. Journal of Science, No. vii. p. 19, Jan. 1826.

³ Phil. Trans. 1815, p. 363.

Voltaic Electricity. deflagration, the batteries ought to be placed alongside of each other, with all the positive poles at one end, and the negative at the other, and the poles of the same name joined. This arrangement will increase the surface, while the number is the same.

"When the battery is to be used, it is to be lifted off the frame, and dipped into a wooden trough lined with lead, into which the acid has been poured, or it may be placed in the leaden trough, and the liquid poured into it till the cells are full. It is then to be placed on the frame, and the rest charged in succession."

Very great improvements have been made on the galvanic battery by Dr Robert Hare of Philadelphia, whose galvanic deflagrator, as he calls it, is represented in fig. 14,

Fig. 14.

which represents an apparatus consisting of two troughs, each of which is 10 feet long. Each trough contains 150 galvanic pairs. The galvanic series, AB, in the upper trough, is shown as it appears when the acid is off the plates, CD being the part of the trough containing the acid when it is off the plates. In the lower trough EF, the galvanic series is omitted, in order that the interior may be better understood. The series belonging to this trough is shown in fig. 15. The pairs are contained in three boxes, each having fifty pairs. In placing these three boxes in the trough, a little space is left between them and that side of the trough in which the acid enters, so that instead of flowing over them, it may run down outside, and rise up within them.

The pairs of the series consist of copper cases, about 7 inches long, 3 wide, and half an inch thick, each containing a zinc plate equally distant from its sides, and prevented from touching it by grooved stripes of wood. Each zinc plate is soldered to one side of the adjacent case of copper, as shown in fig. 16, the copper cases being open only at

Fig. 16.

the top and bottom. The copper cases are separated from each other by very thin veneers of wood.

The two troughs, AB, EF, fig. 14, are joined lengthwise, edge to edge, so that when the sides of the one are vertical, those of the other must be horizontal. Hence, by turning the handle H a quarter of a revolution, the two troughs thus united upon pivots which support them at the ends, will be so raised that any fluid in the one trough must flow into the other, and by reversing the action must flow back

again. In this way, the galvanic series being placed in one of the troughs, and the acid in the other, the plates Voltaic Electricity may, by means of the handle H, be all simultaneously subjected to the action of the acid, or relieved from it. The Hare's galvanic pivots are made of iron, coated with brass or copper, and a vanic deflagrator. The galvanic communication is made between the coating of grator. The pivots and the galvanic series. The lower trough, EF, is connected with the upper one, AB, by metallic rods, mn, op, joining the two handles, H, h.¹

In the course of his experimental researches in electricity, Dr Faraday was led to the construction of a voltaic trough, in which the coppers, passing round both surfaces of the zincs, should not be separated from each other, except by an intervening thickness of paper, or in some other way, so as to prevent metallic contact, and should thus constitute a compact, powerful, and economical instrument. He found, however, that Dr Hare had in the trough, which we have above described, anticipated him in his contrivance. The arrangement of Dr Hare, who separated the copper plates by thin veneers of wood, and poured the acid on and off the plates, by a quarter revolution of an axis, which carries both the troughs with the plates and another trough to collect and hold the liquid, was applied by Mr Faraday as the most convenient. His zinc plates were cut from rolled metal, and, when soldered to the copper ones, had the form shown in fig. 17. They were then bent over

Fig. 17.

a gauge into the shape fig. 18, and when packed in the wooden trough, were disposed as in fig. 19, small plugs of cork being used to prevent the zinc from touching the copper plates, and a single or double thickness of cartridge paper being interposed between the contiguous surfaces of copper to prevent their contact. A trough of 40 pairs of plates could thus be unpacked in five

Fig. 18.

Fig. 19.

minutes, and repacked again in half an hour; and the whole series occupied only 15 inches in length. A trough of this kind, with 40 pairs of plates three inches square, was compared with one of 40 pairs of 4-inch plates, having double coppers, and used in porcelain troughs, with insulating cells, and having the same strength of acid; and the former was found equal to the latter in the ignition of platina wire, in the discharge between points of charcoal, and in the strength of the shock. The following are the advantages of this form of trough enumerated by Dr Faraday:— 1. It is so compact that 100 pair of plates may go into a trough 3 feet long. 2. The copper bearings, on which the pivots rest, afford fixed terminations, which Dr Faraday connects with two cups of mercury fastened in front of stand of the instrument. These fixed terminations give the great advantage of arranging an apparatus to be used in connection with the battery, before the latter is put in action. 3. The trough is ready for use in a few seconds, a single jug of diluted acid being sufficient to charge one hundred plates. 4. When the trough has performed a quarter of a revolution, it becomes active, and the experiment has the advantage of the first contact of the zinc and acid, which is twice, and sometimes thrice, that which the battery can produce a minute or two after. 5. When the experiment is finished, the liquid can be instantly poured

¹ Silliman's Journal, vol. vii. p. 347, and vol. v. p. 94.

from between the plates, and hence the latter is never needlessly wasted, the acid unnecessarily exhausted, or the zinc uselessly consumed. The charge, too, is mixed and made uniform, and the advantage of a first contact is obtained in the next experiment. 6. The saving of zinc is so very great, that Dr Faraday estimates the zinc to be thrice as effective as that in the ordinary form of battery. 7. The surfaces of the zinc and copper plates may be brought much nearer to each other when the battery is constructed, and remain so till it is worn out. 8. Thinner plates of zinc will do the duty of thicker ones, and rolled zinc, which is the purest,¹ may be used. 9. The purity of the diluted acid is proportioned to the quantity of zinc dissolved. 10. The acid is more easily exhausted, so that we need not use an old charge a second time. 11. By using a due mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid for the charge, no gas is evolved from the troughs. Among the defects of this form of the battery, Dr Faraday enumerates the precipitation of copper on the zinc plates, arising chiefly from the papers between the coppers retaining acid when the trough is emptied, which acid, acting slowly on the copper, forms a salt, which gradually mingles with the next charge, and is reduced on the zinc plate by the local action, and hence the power of the whole battery is reduced. Dr Faraday proposed to remedy this evil by using slips of glass to separate the coppers at their edges.²

Mr James Young of the Andersonian University, Glasgow, proposed a form of battery in which these papers are not required, and in which this effect is produced with half the quantity of sheet copper, in consequence of both sides of the copper plates being presented to surfaces of zinc. The following is Mr Young's construction. Supposing the breadth of the required plates to be 2 inches, the sheet copper and zinc are cut into ribbons 2 inches broad and 6 inches long, and a portion cut out as in fig. 20. The ribbon is thus divided into two squares of 2 inches, and united at A, and having a piece projecting at B. Fig. 20,

representing a single plate, either of zinc or copper, is bent at A, as in fig. 21. A plate of zinc thus bent is then united to a similar one of copper, by soldering together the projecting parts BB, as in fig. 22, and this is the only metallic communication existing between them. Each pair of plates is constructed as in fig. 22. In arranging a number of pairs to form a battery, they are interlaced so that a copper square comes in between each couple of zinc squares, and vice versa. This arrangement is not easily described. At the positive end of the battery there is a single copper plate, which is soldered at the top to the last double copper plate, as seen in fig. 23, which represents three pairs properly arranged, and also the way in which they should be fitted up, and kept steadily apart in a wooden frame. This frame is made of two solid pieces of wood, into which are dovetailed two cross bars, ee, ee', in front with two similar ones behind. The grooves in the cross bars for receiving the edges of the plates, are formed by placing the four cross bars together, and sawing a little way into one side of them all every eighth of an inch or so in their length, so as to form a set of parallel grooves.

The frame, fig. 23, with its plates, may be introduced into a porcelain or wooden trough, TT, containing the acid.

diluted acid. Mr Young prefers a single trough to Dr Hare's two connected troughs and by means of an axis of stout wire, AB, carrying two pulleys, PP, the frame and battery can be raised out of the fluid.

Mr Warren de la Rue made an important step, by using a solution of sulphate of copper as the exciting agent in voltaic batteries. Oxygen is thus supplied to the zinc by the oxide of copper; no gas is evolved; and the action being thus rendered continuous, the effect is fully equal to that momentarily produced by immersion in acids. The battery which Mr de la Rue considers best adapted to the use of sulphate of copper, is shown in fig. 27, 28. The zinc plate is shown in fig. 25. It should be tinned on the top A, previous to the amalgamation of the rest of the plate.

The zinc plate is retained in its place by grooves cut out of the two slips of wood BB, to within 3-4ths of an inch of the bottom. The copper plates are formed into cells painted on the outside (as in fig. 26), 5 inches square and 1 inch wide, E, E, being two ears of copper for suspending the cell in its place, and A, a slip of copper to be soldered to the zinc plate in the adjacent cell. As the zinc plates do not descend lower than within 3-4ths of an inch of the bottom of the cells, the space thus left may contain the deposits arising from decomposition of the sulphate of copper. The cells are supported in a long wooden frame, by means of the ears E, E, by hooks driven through them, as shown in fig. 27. In order to receive the charge when the battery is in action, Mr de la Rue employs the contrivance shown in fig. 28. A spout L, a quarter of an inch deep, is placed at the top of each cell, and these spouts overhang a wooden gutter extending along the frame. The solution of the sulphate must then be renewed by means of a funnel with a long neck, the long end being made to descend nearly to the bottom of the cell. When the fresh solution is thus poured in, the spent liquor will run out by the spout into the gutter. When a series of experiments is over, the battery must be emptied, and the plates well cleaned by dashing water between the cells.³

Professor Daniell has published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1836, an account of two new voltaic batteries. The first of these, called the dissected battery, consists of ten glass cells, a section of one of which is represented in the accompanying figures.

"abcd (fig. 29), is a foot of solid glass, containing a cavity efgh, the upper part of which is fitted with a stopper, gh. Through this stopper the stems of the two plates, ijklmn, pass into the lower part of the cavity, which is

¹ Dr Faraday found rolled Liege or Mosselman's zinc the purest.

² London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, April 1837, vol. x. p. 244.

³ Phil. Trans. 1835, part ii.

divided into two cells by the partition $op$, and each of which contains mercury, into which the wires respectively dip. The plates may be connected together, or with the plates of other cells, by means of wires, $p,\; q$, passing through the lateral holes $t,\; u$, and dipping also into the cups of mercury. To the glass foot, thus arranged, a glass shade, $v\; w\; x\; z\; y$, is fitted by grinding, and constitutes a cell for the reception of the liquid. A graduated glass jar, $A,\; B$, may be suspended over either plate by means of a brass clip, proceeding from a rod placed by the side of the cell in the manner represented by fig. 30, which is a perspective drawing of such cells.

Fig. 31 represents the section of a cell which is adapted to the same purposes, but is less expensive in construction. It is supported in a perforated table $C,\; D$, by its projecting rim $v\; w\; z\; y$, and the stems of

the plates pass through the glass stopper $abcd$, into the exterior mercury cups $o,\; p$, by means of which all the necessary connections may be made.

The circular arrangement of the cells of the battery (fig. 30), admits of their being combined together in various ways with the greatest facility, by means of small cups of mercury, $g,\; h,\; i$, placed at proper intervals. My next disposition was to connect all the platinum plates together by wires radiating from them to a central cup $k$, of mercury, and all the zinc plates by wires, dipping into a ring of the same metal, placed in a groove $abcd\; ef$, surrounding the whole arrangement. In this state of things no action was of course manifest, for there was no complete circuit; but upon making a connection by means of a wire, between the central cup and the exterior circle of mercury, the current was enabled to circulate, and was manifested by the simultaneous evolution of gas from all the cells."

Notwithstanding the numerous improvements in the voltaic battery, no successful attempts had been made to discover the causes of the variations and decline of its force, after the first immersion of the plates in the diluted acid. The principal cause of these variations, according to Professor Daniell, is the evolution of hydrogen gas from the negative metallic surface, which not only consumes a con-

siderable portion of the generated electricity, but reduces at the conducting plates the oxide of zinc, formed by the action of the battery at the generating plates, and here the conducting plates were ultimately so encrusted with metallic zinc, as to diminish and finally annihilate the circulating force. Hence he was led to the construction of what he calls a constant battery, for producing an invariable current of force, and he considers it as promising the following advantages:—

1. 1. The abolition of all local action, by the facility of applying amalgamated zinc.
2. 2. The trifling expense of replacing the zinc rods when worn out, and the total absence of any wear of the copper.
3. 3. The dispensing with the use of nitric acid, and the substitution of the cheaper materials, sulphate of copper and oil of vitriol, and the absence of any annoying fumes; and,
4. 4. The facility and perfection with which all metallic communications may be made, and different combinations of the plates arranged.

Fig. 32 represents a section of one of the cells, ten of which are shown in connection at fig. 33; $abcd$ is a cylinder of copper 6 inches high and $3\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inches wide; it is open at the top $ab$, but closed at the bottom, except a collar $ef$, $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inch wide, intended for the reception of a cork into which a glass siphon-tube, $ghijk$, is fitted. On the top, $ab$, a copper collar, corresponding with the one at the bottom, rests by two horizontal arms. Previously to the fixing of the cork siphon-tube in its place, a membranous tube, formed of a part of the gullet of an ox, is drawn through the lower collar, $ef$, and fastened with twine to the upper, $lmno$; and when tightly fixed by the cork below, forming an internal cavity to the cell, communicating with the siphon-tube in such a way as that, when filled with any liquid to the level $mo$, any addition causes it to flow out at the aperture $k$. In this state, for any number of drops allowed to fall into the top of the cavity, an equal number are discharged from the bottom. $pq$ is a rod of cast zinc, amalgamated with mercury, 6 inches long and half an inch diameter, supported on the rim of the upper collar by a stick of wood, $r,\; s$, passing through a hole drilled in its upper extremity; $t$ is a small cup for the reception of mercury, by which, and the cavity $a$, at the top of the zinc rod, various connections of the copper and zinc, of the different cells, may be made by means of wires proceeding from one to the other.

In fig. 33 the ten cells are represented as connected in single series, the zinc of one with the copper of the next. They stand upon a small table in a circle, with the apertures of the siphon-tubes turned inwards, surrounding a large funnel, communicating with the basin underneath, for the reception of any liquid which may overflow. A smaller funnel is supported over the internal cavity of each cell by a ring sliding upon rods of brass placed between each pair of cells. One of these only is shown in the drawing, to avoid the crowding of the sketch.

In the preceding construction, Mr Daniell had two main objects in view. 1. To remove out of the circuit the oxide of zinc as soon as its solution is formed; and, 2. To absorb the hydrogen evolved upon the copper without precipitating any substance injurious to the latter. The first of these objects is completely effected by suspending the rod in the

Voltaic membranous cell, into which fresh acidulated water is electricity, lowered to drop slowly from the funnel above, whilst the

Fig. 33.

heavier solution of the oxide is withdrawn from the bottom at an equal rate by the siphon-tube, ghijk. The second object was attained by charging the space round the membrane with a saturated solution of sulphate of copper instead of dilute acid. When the circuit was completed, the current passed freely through this solution, no hydrogen appeared upon the conducting plate, but a beautiful thick coating of pure copper was precipitated upon it, thus perpetually renewing its surface.

Notwithstanding these changes, there was still a gradual, though very slow decline in the force of the battery, which Mr Daniell traced to the weakening of the saline solution by the precipitation of the copper, and consequent decline of its conducting power. In order to remedy this defect, he suspended some solid sulphate of copper in small muslin bags, which just dipped below the surface of the solution in the cylinder, and kept it in a state of saturation by its gradual dissolution. With this improvement the voltaic current became perfectly steady for six hours together. An improvement upon this arrangement is shown in fig. 34, where acfh, is a perforated colander of copper, into which, instead of muslin bags, the sulphate of copper is placed. The central collar, bdeg, rests by a small ledge upon the rim of the cylinder. The membrane is then drawn through the collar, and, after being turned over its edge, it is fastened with twine.

Having found it of great advantage to increase the number of cells, he now places them in two parallel lines, of ten each, upon a long table, the siphon-tubes being disposed opposite each other, and hanging over a small gutter, placed between the rows to carry off the refuse solution when the acid requires to be changed; and as a uniform action may be kept up by occasionally adding a small quantity of fresh liquid, he now dispenses with the dripping funnels.

Fig. 34.

In a subsequent paper on voltaic combinations,¹ Professor Daniell found that the power of the battery was greatly increased by an increase of temperature. Having dissolved the sulphate of copper in standard acid in place of water, the battery produced 13 in place of 11 cubic inches of mixed gases every five minutes. On another occasion, he added one part of sulphuric acid to eight parts of the saturated solution of the sulphate, and poured it into the cells, when of the high temperature produced by the disengagement of heat during the mixture, which was about 110°. The battery afforded at first 22 inches of the mixed gases in five minutes.

Wishing now to try the effect of higher temperatures, he replaced the membranous tubes with cylinders of porous earthenware. These cylinders, closed at the lower ends, had their diameter $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inch, and the same height as the copper cells. The bottoms of the latter are fitted with sockets in which the tubes are placed, and which confine them in their proper position, the perforated colanders, which hold the sulphate of copper, passing over their upper ends. These porous tubes require to be thoroughly soaked in dilute acid. The increase of temperature was obtained from steam, and the general result of many experiments was, that the working rate of this battery was nearly doubled at a temperature of 212°, provided no secondary action interfered with it.²

In the interesting paper which contains these observations, Professor Daniell has described an improved constant battery of large dimensions, the effects of which exceeded his most sanguine expectation, and which he thinks cannot be farther improved in point of simplicity and cheapness. This battery consists of ten copper cells, 20 inches high, and $3\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inches diameter. The interior partitions are formed by merely tying the open ends of the oxen's gullets to the rings of the colanders which hold the blue vitriol, and which are made deeper than before, and suspending them in the cells, to the bottoms of which they reach. Each bag contains rather more than a quart of the dilute acid. The zinc rods are 5-8ths of an inch in diameter, and well amalgamated, and their connections the same as formerly. At the temperature of 67° this battery produces, in the voltmeter, 12 cubic inches of the mixed gases per minute, or 720 in the hour. It has great power of ignition, and while it will maintain at a red heat 6 inches of platinum wire, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{8\}$ of an inch in diameter, it will still decompose water at the rate of 14 cubic inches in five minutes. When the battery is not in use, the zinc rods are taken out and wiped, and the membranous bags carefully lifted out of their cells, emptied of their acid, filled with water, and suspended from a frame placed for their reception. Professor Daniell adds, that there is no reason to think that the limits of efficiency have yet been nearly attained, and the gullets could easily be connected together so as to obtain bags of any required length. He has more recently put in action seventy series of his large constant battery, which, on the 16th February 1839, fused titanium, and brought to a red heat 16 feet 4 inches of No. 20 platinum wire.

Another form of the constant battery we owe to J. W. Mullins, Esq., who calls it the quantity battery. It consists of an earthenware pot six inches deep and four wide, which is shown in action in fig. 35, and in perspective in fig. 36, a cylinder of amalgamated zinc, ZZ, standing on legs half an inch long, and cut out of the cylinder, is placed in the pot; the height of the cylinder,

Fig. 35.

¹ Phil. Trans., vol. xxxvii. p. 119, &c.

² The experiments of Mariani and Rogers on the influence of heat upon single voltaic circuits will be found in the Annales de Chimie, tome xxxiii. p. 132, and Silliman's Journal, vol. xxvii. p. 57, January 1835. In Roger's experiments, the deflection of the galvanometer rose from 70° to 147° while the temperature rose from 75° to 210°.

Voltaic Electricity. including the legs, is only two inches. Within this cylinder, and at the distance of 3-8ths of an inch from it, is placed a copper vessel e e, having round its outer edge a rim a quarter of an inch wide, round which a thin bladder, well cleaned and moistened, is tied. The bottom of the pot rests on a circular piece of baked wood projecting a quarter of an inch beyond the cylinder. The bladder is then drawn all over and fastened round the upper rim by a cord, and it is kept clear of the copper by the circular piece of wood. The copper cylinder e e, which is as deep as the pot, is perforated with six holes equidistant from the top and bottom. These holes form communications with an inner cylinder of copper C C, three quarters of an inch distant from the outer one. The shelf-bottom of the space between the two cylinders is on a level with the lower edge of the holes, and soldered to the large cylinder. The object of this cylindrical chamber is to hold crystals of sulphate of copper when required, and to contain the solution, which should not rise higher than the upper edge of the holes. A small quantity of sal-ammoniac (muriate of ammonia), in the proportion of 5 parts of the saturated solution to 100 of water, is then poured outside the bladder till it reaches the upper edge of the zinc cylinder Z Z. The solution of sulphate of copper will require a few crystals of the sulphate to be added every four hours, but the ammoniacal solution needs no renewal. The connections are formed, as in fig. 36, by strips of copper soldered to the zinc cylinder Z Z, and to the inner copper cylinder C C. The wires bend over the edge of the pot, and enter two cups holding mercury, from which the wires that transmit the electrical current through any apparatus may proceed. The action of this battery will continue as long as a particle of metallic salt remains in solution. If six drops of a saturated solution of the sulphate of copper are added to the exhausted and colourless solution, the battery instantly resumes its original power. A constant current, therefore, may be kept up by having a few crystals of the blue vitriol on the shelf, which, by being gradually dissolved, will pass to the external surface of the copper.

Mr Mullins has constructed also a battery for intensity, of the effects of which he has given the following description:—"I have put," he says, "as in the quantity battery, a shallow cylinder of zinc within, and close to the internal surface of the earthenware pot, next the copper cylinder, as before; but instead of letting the inside of this cylinder go for nothing, the internal surface of the copper is lined with very thin caoutchouc for insulation; then comes another small cylinder of zinc, then a copper one lined as the last, then a zinc, and lastly, a copper cock, copper, of course, enveloped in membrane. In this battery the power is immense in proportion to the quantity of the metals used, which, in my opinion, depends upon a new principle which is developed in this mode of construction and arrangement, that is, restricting the electric current to gradually diminishing metallic surfaces as it advances; so that, as the quantity accumulates, the conducting surfaces are reduced, and of course a much higher degree of intensity is a necessary consequence. By merely altering the connections of the plates, which, by the mode I have adopted, can be done with the utmost facility, this battery can be turned into a powerful quantity one, and probably a wine glassful of the solution is amply sufficient."

Having found that a single piece of zinc, of three square inches, surrounded by a membrane, could be easily fitted up, Mr Shillibear constructed the galvanic apparatus shown in figs. 37 and 38. It consists of a copper trough, C C, Voltaic Electricity. Rev. J. Shillibear's galvanic battery.

three inches deep, and two and a quarter wide, divided into as many compartments, with copper partitions, as we wish to have zinc plates. A section of a trough, for five plates, is shown in fig. 38. The zinc plates are soldered firmly to a copper bar, and this copper bar is fastened by a screw to a piece of hard wood which serves as a cover to the battery. The pole director, shown at the top of fig. 37, for directing the course of the electric current, is constructed thus: In the wood cover, C C, there is cut a groove on each side of the screw B, in connection with the zinc, and into this groove is fitted a copper slide, which carries two moveable wings, D d, E e, which may be easily brought into contact with the copper or zinc. When the wing D d is in contact with C, and E e with B, the current of electricity will go out from the wire in connection with the wing D d, and return by the wire connected with the wing E e, into the zinc plates through B. If we now shift the slide, so that E e is in contact with C, and D d with B, the current will be reversed, going out by the wire at E e, and returning by the wire at D d, to the zinc through B. In order to prevent any precipitation of the sulphate of copper upon them, the zinc plates should be lightly covered with bladder. When the trough is to be employed for sustaining a weight, the membranes should be slipped off, and diluted nitrous acid used instead of the sulphate of copper solution.²

Before concluding this part of the subject, we must notice Dr Hare's spiral galvanic batteries. The first battery of this kind calorimetric on a large scale was made by Dr Robert Hare, who called it a calorimotor, from its remarkable power of producing heat. It consists of sheets of zinc and copper formed into coils, the copper coil encircling the zinc at a distance not exceeding a quarter of an inch. The sheets of zinc were about 9 inches by 6, and the copper 14 by 6, more of the copper being necessary, as shown in fig. 39, where ZZ represents the zinc, and CC the copper coil. Each coil was about 2½ inches in diameter, and they were 80 in number. All these coils were let down, by means of a lever, into 80 glass jars, 2½ inches diameter, and 8 inches large, containing the acid solution for exciting them.³

¹ Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag., 1836, vol. ix. p. 283.
² Phil. Trans., 1823, p. 187.

³ Sturgeon's Annals of Electricity, April 1837, p. 224.

Voltaic Electricity. M. Pouillet constructed one of these with twelve couples for the Faculty of Sciences at Paris, and found it very powerful in producing great quantities of electricity with low tension. The best liquid for this battery is water, with $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th in volume of sulphuric acid and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{3\}$th of nitric acid.

Mr Pepys' spiral battery. Mr Pepys constructed a similar instrument on a grand scale for the London Institution in 1822, for electro-magnetic purposes. It is represented in fig. 40, where M is the

battery, CC the conductors, W the counterpoise weight, and TT the tubs, one for holding the dilute acid, and the other water. The battery M consists of two plates of copper and zinc, each 50 feet long and 2 wide, exposing a superficial surface of 400 feet. They are rolled or wrapped round a cylinder of wood, with three ropes of horse hair between each fold to keep them from contact, and these ropes are kept in their position by notched sticks, occasionally introduced in the rolling. Two conductors, C, C, of copper, about three quarters of an inch thick, are soldered to the end of each plate, from which the electric force is obtained when the instrument is in action. The battery is suspended by ropes and pulleys, with a counterpoise W, to permit its immersion in a tub of diluted acid, or when not in use in a tub of water. It requires about 55 gallons of fluid, and the solution used contains about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of strong nitric acid.¹

Henry's galvanic battery. A very excellent galvanic battery for producing electricity of different intensities has been described in 1835, by Mr Joseph Henry, of New Jersey College.² The object of the apparatus is to exhibit most of the phenomena of galvanism, and of all those of electro-magnetism, on a large scale, with one battery. It consists of 88 pairs, each of which is composed of a plate of rolled zinc, 9 inches wide and 12 long, inserted in copper cases, open at top and bottom. These elements are suspended in groups of 11 pairs, or 8 sets in all; and each of the 8 troughs which are raised up to the elements are divided into 11 cells by wooden partitions coated with cement.

Grove's constant battery. A very valuable constant battery, invented by Mr Grove in 1839, is shown in a vertical section of it in fig. 41. ABCD is a trough of stoneware, or glass, or wood, well lined with cement, having partitions E, E, E, which divide it into four acid-proof cells. The dotted lines represent four porous vessels of unglazed porcelain or pipe-clay of a parallelopiped or cylindrical shape, and so much narrower than the cells as to allow the liquid they contain to be

double of that which surrounds them. The four dark central lines represent plates of zinc, and the fine lines Voltaic Electricity.

which bend under the porous vessels are sheets of platinum foil which are fixed to the zinc plates by little clamp screws. The zinc employed for the plates is the common rolled zinc, the 30th of an inch thick, which is readily amalgamated. The fluid poured into the zinc side or the porous vessels is either muriatic acid diluted with from 2 to 2½ water, or if the battery be intended to remain a long time in action, of sulphuric acid (of specific gravity 1.336) diluted with 4 to 5 water. The fluid poured into the platinum side is concentrated nitro-sulphuric acid, of specific gravity 1.59, formed by previous mixture of equal measures of the two acids. The apparatus should be provided with a cover containing lime, in order to absorb the nitrous gas.

With one of these batteries, consisting of four pairs of zinc and platinum foil-plate, each metal having a surface of 14 square inches, and the whole occupying less space than a cube of 4 inches in the side, Mr Grove liberated 6 cubic inches of mixed gases per minute, and heated to a bright red 7 inches of platinum wire, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch in diameter. It burned also with beautiful scintillations steel needles of a similar diameter, and affected the magnet proportionally.

When this battery is put in action by uniting its poles, the nitric acid assumes first a yellow, then a green, and then a blue colour, and after some time becomes aqueous, nitrous gas, and ultimately hydrogen, being evolved from the surface of the platina. The oxide of zinc remains almost entirely in the liquid on its own side of the diaphragm, and does not pass through the porous diaphragm to the platina, which thus retains a clean surface, which maintains essentially that constant and energetic action of the battery that makes it so valuable.

Owing to the extreme thinness of the platina foil, rendered necessary by its high price, the plates are frequently torn. M. Bunsen therefore substituted for the platina hollow cylinders of carbon, formed in iron moulds by making the powder of coke cohesive with sugar or molasses. The battery thus constructed has the cylindrical form of Daniell's diaphragm (see fig. 32), from which it differs only in the substitution of a hollow cylinder of carbon for the hollow copper cylinder, of pure or diluted nitric acid for the sulphate of copper solution, and of a cylinder of porous earth for the porous cylinder of ox-gullet or other organic membrane, containing the diluted sulphuric acid and the cylinder of amalgamated zinc. The battery thus constructed is shown in fig. 42. Each of the carbon cylinders is furnished at its upper end with a ring of copper carrying an arm a, a, which by means of pincers p, p, p, is put in contact with a similar arm b, b, carried by each zinc cylinder, the copper ring rising so far above the glass vessel as to prevent its touching the nitric acid. Notwithstanding this precaution,

Voltaic Electricity. the acid will rise through the pores of the charcoal and the interior of the copper ring, so that it is necessary, every time the battery is used, to wash or clean the rings.

M. Bonjol's improvement. In order to get rid of this inconvenience, M. Bonjol employs solid cylinders of carbon prepared in moulds, or obtained from pieces of well-baked coke of a good quality. In the top of each cylinder is inserted a strong copper rod, bent so as to communicate by a cup of mercury with a similar rod soldered to each zinc cylinder. Round the part of the carbon cylinder, where the copper rod is inserted, is a coating of wax, made to penetrate to a sufficient depth into the pores of the carbon which it covers, in order to prevent the nitric acid from reaching the copper rod. In this battery the amalgamated zinc is placed outside the carbon, and is a hollow cylinder immersed in the glass vessel containing the diluted sulphuric acid. The porous tube is placed in the interior of the zinc cylinder, and receives the carbon and the nitric acid into which the zinc cylinder must be immersed.

Smee's chemo-mechanical battery. Another constant battery very generally used is that of Mr Alfred Smee, in which the pairs consist of amalgamated zinc and plates of silver, platinised by coating them with the black powder of platinum plunged into diluted sulphuric acid.¹

Having observed that the greatest quantity of gas is given off at the corners, edges, and points, Mr Smee placed a piece of spongy platinum in contact with amalgamated zinc, and found that violent action ensued. He next tried platinum platinised or coated with the black powder of platinum, and he found that 7 square inches of it gave off 5 cubic inches of gas per minute, while platinum heated gave off only 1 cubic inch in the same time, and platinum covered by air only 1 cubic inch in 6 minutes. After platinising different metals, &c., he found that platinised silver was the most powerful agent. A battery upon this principle may have various forms, but Mr Smee preferred the trough form as in an ordinary Wollaston's battery. A battery thus constructed, with 4 cells containing 48 square inches in each, decomposed 7 cubic inches of mixed gas in 5 minutes, whilst 4 cells of Daniell's battery, in which there were 65 square inches of copper in each, gave only 5 cubic inches in the same time.

Grove's gas voltaic battery. A voltaic battery, in which the active ingredients were gases, was proposed in 1842 by Mr Grove,² and a series of interesting experiments were made with it to ascertain the rationale of its action, and its application to eudiometry.³

It consists of a series of tubes ox, hy, filled with oxygen and hydrogen, and containing strips of platinum foil $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$ of an inch wide, shown by the dark lines in the axis of each tube. The foil is covered with a pulverulent deposit of

the same metal (voltaically deposited from the chloride). Voltaic Electricity. "The platinum foil passed through the upper part of the Electrode

tubes, which are closed with cement, the lower extremities were open. They were arranged in pairs in separate vessels of dilute sulphuric acid (specific gravity 1.2), and of each pair one tube was charged with oxygen, the other with hydrogen gas, in quantities such as would allow the platinum to touch the dilute acid. The platinum in the oxygen of one pair was metallically connected with the platinum in the hydrogen of the next, and a voltaic series of 50 pairs was thus formed.⁴ By allowing the platinum to touch the liquid, the latter will spread over its powdery surface by capillary action, and expose an extended surface to the gaseous atmosphere. With this battery,

1. 1. A shock was given which could be felt by five persons joining hands.
2. 2. The needle of a moderately sensitive galvanometer was deflected 60°.
3. 3. A gold leaf electroscope was notably affected.
4. 4. A brilliant spark in broad daylight was produced between charcoal points.

5. Iodide of potassium, hydrochloric acid, and water acidulated with sulphuric acid, were severally decomposed.

Three forms of this battery are described by Mr Grove in the paper already referred to; but he considers the annexed form representing one cell as the most convenient.

aa is a Woolfe's glass bottle with three necks, a glass stopper b closes the centre neck, and tubes o, h are accurately fitted by means of glass collars c, c welded to them and ground on the outside. The platinum wires o, h are hermetically sealed on the tops of the tubes, and carry a small copper cup filled with mercury.

A new class of gaseous pairs has been proposed by M. Gaugain. The simplest of these is obtained by placing together two tubes of glass, one of which contains air, and the other the vapour of alcohol, and exposing them to a high temperature. With these pairs arranged end to end, he forms a true battery, which produces all the effects of an ordinary hydro-electric battery. The wires which connect the glass tubes act only as simple conductors, and the electricity is supposed to arise solely from an action between the oxygen and the glass that is brought to a state of fusion.⁴

¹ See Phil. Mag., April 1840, vol. xvi. p. 315.

² Phil. Trans., 1843, p. 91-113.

³ Phil. Mag., December 1842, vol. xxi. p. 417.

⁴ See De la Rive's Electricity, vol. II. p. 736.

The name of Voltameter has been given to instruments for measuring the power of the Voltaic battery. This has been done in three ways—1st, By measuring the quantity of gas liberated in a minute in the decomposition of water, or the number of minutes required to liberate a given quantity, as proposed by Mr Faraday; 2d, By the quantity of heat produced, and shown in the expansion of a platinum wire, as proposed by M. Gaspard Delarive, or by the induction of a Breguet's metallic thermometer, as proposed by M. Augustus Delarive; and, 3d, By the expansion of the air in the ball of a thermoscope containing a platinum wire, which gives out its heat to the air, and raises the coloured fluid to an altitude proportional to its temperature, which measures the strength of the battery.

Faraday's voltameter. The first of these voltameters, that of Mr Faraday, consists of a graduated glass tube, a (fig. 45), closed at the upper end. Platina wires b, b', terminating in two platinum plates within the tube, pass through the tube, and are fused into the glass. The tube is fitted, by grinding, into one of the necks of a two-necked bottle. If the bottle is $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ or $\backslash frac\{2\}\{3\}$ full of dilute sulphuric acid, it will, by inclining the tube, flow into the tube and fill it. When an electric current, therefore, is passed through the instrument between the plates, the evolved gases collect in the upper part of the tube, without being subject to the recombining power of the platina. The stopper c is taken out. By replacing the stopper, and refilling the tube with the liquid by inverting the bottle, a second measure of gas may be obtained on replacing the wires at b, and b'.

These instruments, however useful, are imperfect, and have been superseded by the electro-magnetic galvanometers of Schweigger, Nobili, and Dubois Remond.

In producing electricity of high tension, or its statical effects, a great number of pairs must be used, as in the dry pile or electric column, first constructed in 1805 by Behrens, who formed a column of 80 pairs of discs of zinc, copper, and gilt paper. In 1810 M. De Luc constructed a pile consisting of discs of zinc and silver paper an inch in diameter. These discs succeed each other in the following order: zinc, silver, paper; zinc, silver, paper. When from 500 to 1000 discs are enclosed in a dry glass tube, and the plates are pressed together by a brass cap and screw at each end, the pile will produce distinct electrical effects. When the columns of 1000 series each are fitted up as in fig. 46, and placed vertically in a glass receiver, a brass ball, suspended by a thread of raw silk, will, by the action of the two piles, continually strike the two bells placed at the lower end of the piles.

Mr B. M. Forster succeeded in making an apparatus analogous to the preceding, which rung continually for five months. Mr Singer made one which rung continually for fourteen months, and De Luc had a pendulum which kept vibrating for more than two years.

served, that when the paper, after being dried to excess, was heated by exposing the pile to a temperature of from 104° to 140°, the pile began to act as powerfully as before. When the paper is in its driest natural state the pile is active, and it loses its activity only when the paper is subjected to a degree of heat capable of scorching it. By means of a pile of 20,000 groups of silver, zinc, and double discs of writing paper, distinct sparks were obtained. A jar, having a coated disc of 50 square inches, was charged in ten minutes, and gave a disagreeable shock in the elbows and shoulders. The charge of this jar fused 1 inch of platina wire, the five-thousandth of an inch in diameter. This pile, though exhibiting such power, did not exercise the slightest chemical action.

The two ends of the electric pile are in opposite electric states, the zinc extremity being positive, and the silver extremity negative, the middle part being in a neutral state.

M. de Luc and M. Haussman observed that the rays of the sun increased the power of the column, an effect which they thought was not due to heat. Mr Singer, however, found that his column was always more powerful in summer than in winter, and in a room with a fire than in one without it.

M. de Luc has shown how the dry pile may be used in determining the conducting power of bodies, and also their insulating qualities, and he has likewise employed it as an aerial electroscope for indicating the electrical changes which take place in the atmosphere.¹

In 1812, Professor Zamboni of Verona made a considerable improvement on the dry pile. He dispenses entirely dry pile, with the discs of zinc, and employs only discs of paper, one of whose surfaces is silvered, or rather tinned, and the other covered with a thin film of the peroxide of manganese pulverised in a mixture of milk and flour. The faces of tin are placed in contact with those of manganese, the tin being the positive, and the peroxide the negative element.

In 1840, Mr Gassiot succeeded in exhibiting the chemical power of the dry pile. Having constructed a pile of 10,000 series of discs of laminated zinc, paper, and oxide of manganese, each about 1 inch in diameter, he divided it into separate piles of 1000 each. With this apparatus he succeeded in obtaining sparks which passed through the space of $\backslash frac\{1\}\{100\}$th of an inch. When the distance of the points was $\backslash frac\{1\}\{1000\}$th of an inch, the stream of sparks was so powerful as to produce that peculiar phosphorescent odour (that of ozone) which is always perceptible in the action of the electrical machine. With one of the piles of 1000 series, a spark passed through a space of the $\backslash frac\{1\}\{1000\}$th of an inch; but what was of more interest, M. Gassiot succeeded, after many trials, in obtaining chemical decomposition of a solution of iodide of potassium. He fastened about 2 inches of platinum wire to each end of the pile of 10,000 series, the two points of his micrometer electrometer being brought parallel to each other, so as to be about a quarter of an inch apart. A piece of bibulous paper, saturated with a solution of iodide of potassium, was placed on a slip of glass, and then brought into contact with the ends of the wires from each extremity of the pile. The iodine then appeared invariably on the end of the wire attached to the end of the pile, which terminated with the oxide of manganese.

In 1840, Mr Crosse constructed a tension pile or water battery of 1626 cells of copper and zinc excited with river water, and by means of it he obtained a spark between slips of tin foil pasted on sealing-wax.

Having received an account of this battery, M. Gassiot constructed a very powerful one, composed of 3520 pieces, slot's water or series of copper and zinc cylinders, each piece being placed in a separate glass vessel, covered with a coat of

¹ See Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxvii. pp. 81, 161, 241, and also vol. xxviii. p. 5; Phil. Mag., 1810, vols. xxxv., xxxvi., and xxxvii., and Singer's Elements of Electricity.

² Phil. Trans., 1840, part i. p. 191, note.

Voltaic gum-lac varnish. The glass cells are placed on slips of Electricity glass, covered on both sides with a thick coating of lac. The 3520 cells thus insulated are placed on 44 separate oaken boards, also covered with lac varnish, each board carrying 80 cells. The boards or trays slide into a wooden frame, when they are further insulated by resting upon pieces of thick plate-glass similarly varnished.

The water battery is shown in the annexed figures, where

A A represents the wooden frames in which are placed the 44 boards containing the entire battery, B a shelf for holding a galvanometer, N A P the terminals or poles. Fig. 48

shows a single cell, g being a glass vessel, c copper, z zinc; and fig. 49 one of the boards when removed from the entire series. This battery is charged with pure water, and the only precaution to be taken is to pour water occasionally into the cells to replace what is lost by evaporation. For several years this battery constantly gives electric sparks at each of its poles which are insulated.

The dry pile has been applied with much success by M. Bohnenberg, in constructing an electroscope of great delicacy. Having suspended between the two opposite poles of two piles a single strip of gold leaf, he found that this leaf, however slightly it was electrified, was drawn to one or other of the poles, according to the nature of the electricity with which it was influenced. In this way he obtained an instrument, not only sensible to small electrical influences, but capable of indicating the kind of electricity which was present.¹

All the dry piles we have mentioned lose their power in course of time. According to Delarive those which last longest, though less powerful than those of Zamboni, are made of Dutch silver paper and Dutch gold paper, stuck together by the surfaces where the paper is bare. When placed above one another, the discs are kept together by a very fine silk cord impregnated with varnish. The column is then inclosed in tubes of varnished glass, and supported between varnished rods of glass, the lowermost disc rests upon a metal plate, and the uppermost is pressed down by a metallic screw terminated by a bulb. The tension of the electricity is not increased by the size of the discs.

With four columns thus constructed, containing 2230 Voltaic pairs of discs an inch in diameter, M. Riess obtained 96 Electric small sparks in a minute. At the end of four months he got only 48 sparks in the same time. With a similar column of 1800 discs, M. Dubois Remond made a magnetised needle deviate, and produced contractions in a prepared frog. With 2000 pairs, each 12½ inches long and 7 broad, M. Delezenne decomposed water. Mr Watkins constructed a dry pile of zinc alone, one side of the plate being rough and the other polished, and with one of 60 or 80 plates, with their rough faces turned in the same direction, and placed the 20th of an inch distant, in a wooden trough, he developed electricity at each pole so largely as to show that the polished face was positive, and the rough face negative, the air acting as a moist conductor.²

Before concluding this part of the subject, we shall describe some pieces of apparatus, which have been employed both in this country and on the continent, in conducting the important researches to which we shall afterwards refer, respecting the reduction of oxides and earths by weak electric currents. M. Becquerel used only a single pair of M. Delezenne's decomposing cell. Having closed a glass tube at one end by a plug of moistened clay, he immersed it in a weak solution of common salt. The solution of the metallic salt to be decomposed was then placed in this glass tube, and a compound metallic arc, formed of zinc and platinum, was placed in the solution in such a manner that the platinum leg was immersed in the tube containing the metallic solution (the negative tube of Becquerel), while the zinc dips in the solution of salt. Chemical decomposition then takes place, and in a few hours or more, sometimes a few weeks, the metal appears on the plate of platinum, in a form more or less crystallised.

Dr Golding Bird, in prosecuting similar researches, has contrived a simple form of the battery, which, with Becquerel's cell, enables us to perform this class of experiments with facility and certainty. It consists of a large glass cylinder A (fig. 50), 8 inches deep and 2 in diameter. Within this is fixed, by means of corks, another glass cylinder B, 1½ inch in diameter, and 4 inches long, and closed at one end with a plug or bottom D of plaster of Paris, 0.7 of an inch in diameter. A piece of sheet copper C, 6 inches long and 3 wide, loosely coiled up, and having the conducting copper wire, F, soldered to it, is placed in the cylinder D, while an equal sized piece of zinc, E, loosely coiled up, and furnished with a conducting wire, G, is placed in the cylinder A. When the cylinder A is nearly filled with weak brine, and the smaller one, B, with a saturated solution of sulphate of copper, the apparatus is com-

¹ See Annales de Chim. et de Phys., tome xvi. p. 91, and Bibl. Univ., tome xv. p. 163; Gilbert's Annales der Physik, vol. xlix.

² Delarive's Electricity, vol. II. p. 852.

Voltaic Electricity. plete; and if the fluids in the two cylinders are kept at the same level, a continuous current of electricity will be maintained for some weeks. The mode of connecting this battery with the decomposing cell is shown in fig. 51. This cell is the counterpart of the battery, consisting of two glass cylinders, A, B, the latter having a plaster of Paris bottom. The tube B is about 3 inches long and half an inch wide, and receives the metallic or other solution to be decomposed, the outer tube A being filled with weak brine. Into this brine is plunged a strip of amalgamated zinc, C, connected with the wire F of the battery, while a strip of platinum foil, D, is immersed in the metallic solution, and is connected with the wire G of the battery. This apparatus, therefore, consists of an active single battery, of which C, E, is one of the two metallic elements, and C, D, the other; and the fluid between C and E, separated by the porous diaphragm D, one fluid element, and the fluid between C and D, separated by a porous diaphragm, another fluid element.¹

CHAP. II.—ON THE GENERAL PHENOMENA AND EFFECTS OF GALVANISM.

General phenomena of galvanism. In our article on ELECTRICITY,² we have already given a brief account of the results obtained by Dr Faraday, which established the identity of all the various kinds of electricity, and the relation by measure of ordinary and voltaic electricity, as obtained by the same distinguished philosopher, and of his new law of electrical conduction.

Notwithstanding the identity of character of common and voltaic electricity, the effects which they produce are almost infinitely varied, some of these effects being exalted, while others are diminished. All these variations, however, are explicable by the differences in quantity and intensity of these two kinds of electricity.

In the case of ordinary electricity, a piece of glass or sealing-wax, excited by friction and kept near the cap of a gold-leaf electrometer, will produce a great and instantaneous divergence of the leaves; but in voltaic electricity the same effect is not produced, even by a battery of 100 pair of plates.

Difference between ordinary and voltaic electricity. When the extremities or poles of such a battery are examined by the electrometer, they are found to be positive and negative, the gold leaves repelling each other at the same pole, and attracting each other at different poles, even when above half an inch of air intervenes. Hence ordinary differs from voltaic electricity, in having a much higher degree of tension, or intensity, that is in acting with a greater elastic force in a given direction. From this property it acts so powerfully on the electrometer, and is discharged with such facility through air, whether highly rarefied or heated. On the other hand, voltaic differs from ordinary electricity in the enormous quantity of electricity which it develops and puts in motion, and in the continuity or perpetual reproduction of the current.

In order to convey some idea of the immense difference in this respect of the two electricities, Dr Faraday has stated that "the chemical action of a grain of water upon four grains of zinc can evolve electricity equal in quantity to that of a powerful thunder-storm." That if a Leyden battery is charged with 30 turns of a large and powerful plate electrical machine in full action, it would require 800,000 such charges to supply electricity to decompose a single grain of water, or to equal the quantity which is naturally associated with the elements of that grain of water, endowing them with their mutual chemical affinity.³ Or to

put the comparison differently, the quantity of electricity in 25$\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ grains of water is equal to above 24,000,000 of charges of the Leyden battery above mentioned, or would keep any length of platina wire $\backslash frac\{1\}\{10\}$th of an inch in diameter red hot for an hour and a half.

We have already seen that voltaic electricity at rest, like ordinary electricity, produces attractions and repulsions. We shall therefore proceed to give an account of the effects of voltaic electricity in motion, or of voltaic currents.

SECT. I.—On the Conducting Power of Solids and Fluids for Voltaic Electricity.

When a voltaic battery is in a state of activity, and when wires of different metals are placed between the poles of the battery, so as to complete the circuit, the current of electricity passes through them with different degrees of facility, that is, the different metals transmit the electricity with different degrees of resistance.

The following table contains the results obtained by Becquerel, Davy, Harris, &c., respecting the conducting power of different metals, for different kinds of electricity.

These results are, generally speaking, greatly at variance, the only ones that admit of comparison being those of Becquerel and Sir W. Snow Harris. Much depends on the purity of the metals; and Sir William has ascertained that the conducting power of alloys is very different from that of their component metals. This appears very distinctly from the number for brass, which bears no relation in M. Pouillet's column, to the measures for copper and zinc, and also from his measure for gold of 18 karats, which we find to be only the 7th of copper, and the 6th of fine gold. The conducting power in the same metal increases directly as the area of the section of the wires, and inversely as the length of the wire.

M. Pouillet has found that the same law holds in liquids included in cylindrical tubes. By comparing, in this way, the conducting power of different saline solutions, the conducting wires being formed of the metal whose oxide was in solution, he found, as Fechner had done, that the intensity was rigorously in the direct ratio of the section and the inverse ratio of the conductivity. In this way he found that 433 feet of platinum wire 0.006 inch in diameter, had the same conducting power as a column of saturated solution of sulphate of copper $3\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ feet in length, and 0.8 inch in diameter, from which it follows that the conducting power of the platinum is two million and a half times greater than that of the solution.

The following table shows the results of his observations, the conducting power of the copper solution at 59° Fahr., being taken as unity.

¹ See Phil. Trans. 1837, part i. pp. 39, 40; and Graham's Elements of Chemistry, pp. 237, 238.

² Faraday's Exp. Researches, pp. 253, 258, and 861, 873.

³ Camb. Trans. 1823, p. 63.

⁴ Traité de l'Electricité, vol. III. p. 91.

⁵ Phil. Trans. 1833, p. 95.

⁶ Vol VIII. pp. 574-5.

⁷ Phil. Trans. 1817.

⁸ Traité de Physique, II. p. 315.

Marianini. M. Marianini has obtained a great number of interesting results respecting the conducting power of water holding in solution different acids, alkalis, or salts, compared with that of distilled water, at the temperature of 3° of Reaumur. The following is a selection from his results:—

The conducting power of solutions increases as the quantity of salts dissolved, but more slowly as the solution approaches to saturation. The preceding table shows that acid solutions have the greatest; and the alkaline and neutral solutions, the least conducting power.

Faraday. The relation between the conductivity of non-metallic bodies in the solid state, and that of the same bodies in the liquid state, has been investigated by Dr Faraday, with his usual ability and success. Having found that a thin plate of ice stopped the electric current, while the same current passed when the ice was converted into water, Dr Faraday examined a great number of non-metallic solids, and found that they assumed the conducting property during liquefaction, and lost it during congelation; but what was remarkable, all those bodies underwent decomposition when fluid, with the single exception of the periodide of mercury, which, though it insulated when solid, and conducted when fluid, was not decomposed in the latter state. Dr Faraday found also a great variety of bodies, which acquired no conducting power in the fluid state, such as sulphur, phosphorus, &c., and they were not decomposed in this last state.

The relation between conduction and decomposition is a very important one; but no less so is the relation of the conducting power for electricity to that for heat. "As the solid becomes a fluid," says Dr Faraday, "it loses almost entirely the power of conduction for heat, but gains in a high degree that for electricity; but as it reverts back to the solid state, it gains the power of conducting heat, and loses that of conducting electricity."

Conditions of electric conduction. Dr Faraday has given the following summary of the conditions of electric conduction in bodies:—

1. All bodies conduct electricity in the same manner from metals to lac and gases, but in very different degrees.

2. Conducting power is in some bodies powerfully increased by heat (such as in sulphuret of silver, fluoride of lead, periodide of mercury, and corrosive sublimate), and in others diminished, yet without our perceiving any accompanying essential electrical difference, either in the bodies, or in the changes occasioned by the electricity conducted.

3. A numerous class of bodies, insulating electricity of

low intensity when solid, conduct it very freely when fluid, and are then decomposed by it.

4. But there are many fluid bodies which do not sensibly conduct electricity of this low intensity; there are some which conduct it, and are not decomposed, nor is fluidity essential to decomposition.

5. There is but one body yet discovered (periodide of mercury, to which Dr Faraday subsequently added corrosive sublimate), which, insulating a voltaic current when solid, and conducting it when fluid, is not decomposed in the latter case.

6. There is no strict electrical distinction of conduction which can, as yet, be drawn between bodies supposed to be elementary, and those known to be compounds.¹

Sir Humphry Davy² has shown, that, as a class, metals have their conducting power diminished by heat; and Sir W. Snow Harris has proved, that heat does affect gaseous bodies, or at least air.³

The two electricities of the pile, when disengaged by Intensity and direction of voltaic currents, tend continually to reunite and form a neutral fluid, by entering the conducting bodies in their vicinity. The quantity of electricity which remains free, constitutes the tension of the pile, or the intensity of the current, as we have already explained.

The tension of the pile is affected by various causes. Intensity of currents. When its two extremities are united by a metallic arc, the tension at first diminishes rapidly, but the diminution becomes slower and slower, till it reaches its limit, beyond which the tension no longer decreases, however great is the length of time during which the circuit is closed.

The loss of tension in a given time increases with the number of voltaic couples, and the pile is longer in reaching the limit beyond which the tension does not decrease.

The loss of tension is more rapid when the liquid exercises a more powerful chemical action on the oxidable metal of the voltaic couple, and the longer it is in reaching the limit of decrease. In these experiments, which we owe to Marianini, the conducting power of the metallic arc has no influence.

The electric tension lost under the preceding circumstances, is again restored by opening the pile, that is, reversing the metallic arc which united its extremities; but it requires more time to recover its primitive tension, the longer the circuit has been closed.

In studying the change produced upon the tension when the circuit is not closed by a metallic arc, M. Marianini found that a battery with new plates loses less tension in a given time, than one with oxidated plates, the new apparatus reaching its limit sooner than the old one. In piles consisting of gold and zinc couples, tension diminishes more rapidly than in the ordinary pile, and reaches its limit in a very short time; whilst in piles with lead and zinc, the tension diminishes less rapidly than with copper and zinc.

The direction as well as the intensity of electric currents, Direction of currents. depends on the degree of chemical action exerted by the liquid on one of the metals, particularly the most oxidable one. When the liquid and the metals are therefore known, the direction of the current can be predicted. The metal most acted upon takes away from the liquid negative electricity. Zinc, for example, is more attacked by brine than copper, and therefore takes from the brine its negative electricity; but if the liquid is a solution of sulphuret of potassium, which affects the copper more than the zinc,

Voltaic Electricity. the copper will take from the solution its negative electricity, and the current will take an opposite direction. Hence, in a pile with brine, the zinc extremity will give positive electricity; whereas, in a pile with a solution of sulphure of potassium, the zinc extremity will give negative electricity.

Delarive's experiments. M. Delarive obtained the following interesting results, by immersing different voltaic couples in nitric acid of different strengths. Each metal in the two columns is positive in relation to the one which precedes it.

M. Becquerel mentions arsenic and iron as a remarkable example of a change of polarity produced by the chemical action of the fluid. With a voltaic couple of iron and arsenic, the iron is strongly positive compared with the arsenic, when they are immersed in diluted acid, which acts slightly upon the arsenic; but when they are immersed in potash kept in fusion, the arsenic, upon which the potash acts powerfully, becomes positive.

M. Delarive's results. M. Delarive has illustrated this branch of science with a number of valuable experiments on the changes produced upon electric currents, while passing through liquid conductors, interrupted by metallic plates. The following are the results at which he arrived:—

1. One or more metallic laminæ (platina), placed perpendicularly to the direction of the electric current, in a liquid conductor, diminish the intensity of the current which traverses them.

2. This diminution is almost nothing when the electric current is very energetic, and proceeds from a pile containing a great number of couples; but the intensity diminishes the more rapidly in passing through the same number of plates, as its original intensity is less energetic.

3. If one or two electrical currents of the same intensity, the one an original one, and the other one which has previously passed through several metallic plates, the first will have its intensity much more diminished by the interposition of a plate than the second. Hence, these currents have the same property (not by polarisation, as stated by Becquerel), as light and heat which have passed through absorbing media.¹ We have no doubt, therefore, that currents which have passed through plates of metals, will have thus acquired, or have possessed previous to their separation, other properties than that of passing more freely through other metallic plates.

From the preceding results, M. Delarive has explained the difference between the effects of a pile with a small number of couples, and a pile with a larger number. The first produces more easily the effects which took place when the circuit is closed by a very good conductor, while the second may be best employed in producing phenomena which take place in the circuit of an imperfect conductor, such as a fluid, the transmitted currents in the latter case having acquired, in passing through a greater number of plates, a greater facility of traversing an imperfect conductor.

As the intensity of the electric current had been found to increase with the surface, acted upon by the fluid, M.

Delarive endeavoured to determine the law of increase. Voltaic Electricity. He found that an increase of surface facilitated the transmission of the current; that the augmentation of intensity produced by a greater extent of surface, increased in a M. Delarive's results. greater ratio than the surface when the current is feeble, and in a less ratio when the current is intense; so that we gain more by increasing the surface when the current is weak than when it is strong.

With regard to the influence of fluid conductors in diminishing the intensity of the electric current, M. Delarive found that nitric acid diminishes the intensity least, then muriatic acid, then sulphuric acid. Nitric acid, pure and greatly diluted, produces a less diminution than concentrated acid. The contrary takes place with sulphuric acid, which is a bad conductor. The silver solution came next, then potash and ammonia, which differ little from each other.

For further information on the subject of this section, see Marianini, Saggio di Esperienze Elettromotriche, Venice, 1825; Ann. de Chim. et de Phys., tom. xxxvi. p. 33; xxxvii. p. 256; xxxviii. pp. 49, 337; xlv. p. 2; Delarive's Esquisse Historique des principales Découvertes faites dans l'Electricité, Geneva, 1823; or in the Bibl. Universelle for 1833. See especially Becquerel's Traité de l'Elect. et Magnet., tom. iii.

SECT III.—On the Propagation of Electricity.

In 1827 M. Ohm² published his Theory of the Voltaic Ohm's Circuit, in which he concluded, on principles purely theoretical, that the intensity I, or electromotive force of a current in a closed circuit, is directly proportional to the sum of the electromotive forces E, which are in activity in the circuit, and inversely proportional to the sum of the resistances of all parts of the circuit, or R, that is,

By the term electromotive force is meant the force or forces, or causes, which produce an electric current, and by the term resistance is expressed the obstacles opposed to the passage of the current by all the parts of the circuit. This resistance is the inverse of the conducting power of all the parts of the circuit.

The resistance, which is equivalent to the sum of all the resistance, may be represented by the length of a wire of a given nature and thickness, which Ohm calls its reduced length.

The following laws are deducible from the preceding formula:—

1. The electromotive force varies with the number of elements in any voltaic circuit, and with the nature of the solids and fluids of which each element is composed.

2. The resistance of each element is directly proportional to the distance of the plates from each other in the liquid, and to the specific resistance of the liquid, depending on its chemical constitution, and inversely to the surface of the plates in the liquid.

3. The resistance of the wire connecting the poles of the circuit is directly proportional to its length and its specific resistance, and inversely to the area of its section.

These and other laws of the propagation of electricity have been sufficiently confirmed by experiment.

The following is a brief abstract of the laws of the propagation of electricity by good conductors, as given at great length by M. Delarive. In studying these laws, two or three pairs

¹ M. Becquerel, to whose excellent work we are indebted for the latest and best information on this subject, asks "if we will from analogy say, that the current, in traversing different plates, acquires a polarisation similar to that of light?" Certainly not. When white light passes through a certain thickness of any coloured medium, or any similar number of coloured plates, it loses a certain portion of its rays, say $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th, and the transmitted light is red. Now, this red light may be transmitted through the same number of the same plates, and yet not lose $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th of its light; but there is no polarisation. The first plates absorbed all the rays but the red, and having the property of transmitting the red rays freely and more copiously than any other, they passed through in greater abundance. As these transmissions are all at a vertical incidence, polarisation can have nothing to do with the matter.

² See 'Principal Forbes' Dissertation, p. 982, for an account of Ohm's laws of electrical conduction.

Voltaic Electricity. of Daniell's or Grove's battery, for obtaining the electromotive force, and metal plates, wires, and saline or acid solutions, will, to obtain the resistances, be sufficient for ascertaining the laws of the propagation of electricity.

1. The first law which M. Delarive established for solid and liquid conductors in 1824 and 1825, is the tendency of the dynamic electric current to distribute itself or to occupy the whole extent of a conductor, which it does in small parallel filaments of equal intensity.

Hence it follows that the intensity of the current is proportional to the narrowness of the portion of the conductor through which it passes.

2. Two or more electric currents are propagated independently, and without modifying each other, in the same conductor.

This was proved by Marianini, who also transmitted a third current through a liquid while it was transmitting other two, and this in a direction perpendicular to them. This fact is analogous to the transmission of light, but the analogy is only apparent, as electrical currents undergo neither reflection, refraction, nor polarisation.

3. The electrical current is diminished in intensity when its passage through a liquid mass is obstructed by diaphragms or metal plates.

This phenomenon is, according to M. Delarive, one of conductivity; but, in addition to it, he remarks, that there is a resistance of passage due to the mere fact of the currents passing from a solid into a fluid, or the reverse.

4. The same quantity of electricity traverses at the same time all the successive parts of a closed circuit, including the apparatus which produces the current, however different be their form, their nature, and their extent, "circumstances which influence only the absolute quantity of electricity in circulation, and not its relative intensity in different parts of the circuit." "Also," M. Delarive continues, "if we have in the same circuit, first the pile, then a wire coming from one of its poles and entering into a liquid, and two or three parallel wires extending from this liquid to the other pole, the quantity of electricity that, under the form of a current, traverses the pile itself, the first wire, the liquid, and the two or more parallel wires, is exactly the same."

This law was indicated to Ampere, more accurately proved by Becquerel, demonstrated by Pouillet and Fechner, but more completely by Delarive. This law is implicitly admitted by Ohm in his Theory of the Battery.

From this law it follows, that the absolute intensity of an electrical current passing through a closed circuit depends upon two circumstances alone—the forces that produce the electricity, and the resistances to conductivity occasioned by the whole circuit. This latter element was first pointed out by Delarive in 1825, and in some degree anticipated Ohm's law already referred to.

5. If we increase or diminish the resistance of any part of a circuit, the total intensity of the current diminishes or increases, ceteris paribus, in a proportion the same as that existing between the resistance added or removed, and the total new resistance of the entire circuit. This law is deducible from the fourth and from Ohm's formula.

If $R$ in the formula, $I\; =\; \backslash frac\{E\}\{R\}$ becomes $R\; +\; r$ or $R\; -\; r$, we have $I\; =\; \backslash frac\{E\}\{R+r\}$ or $I\; =\; \backslash frac\{E\}\{R-r\}$; and calling $I\text{'}$, the intensity in the one case, and $I\text{'}\text{'}$, the intensity in the other, we have

that is, the diminution of intensity is to the original intensity as the increased resistance $r$ is to the new total resistance $R+r$, and the increase $I\text{'}\; -\; I$ is to the original intensity as the suppressed resistance $r$ is to the new total resistance $R-r$.

This law was verified experimentally by Fechner and Pouillet.

6. The resistance opposed to a current by any conductor is directly proportional to its length, and inversely to the area of its section.

This law, which may be demonstrated directly, follows from the preceding. It is the same as the law of conductivity adopted by preceding writers, namely,

The conducting power of a wire is inversely as its length, and directly as the area of its section.

The 6th law requires to be proved by direct experiment, but the 7th is deducible from the uniform distribution of electricity in motion throughout every portion of a homogeneous conductor, a fact which shows that voltaic or dynamic electricity does not pass to the surfaces of bodies like ordinary electricity.

Fechner verified the 6th law in liquids as well as solids, in so far as length is concerned, but in reference to section he found it verified only when the surface of the electrode is equal to that of the section.

8. If two parallel conductors placed in the voltaic circuit are of the same nature, diameter, and length, as is the case with two similar wires, the current will divide itself equally between them. But if they are of different lengths, $L$ and $L\text{'}$, the proportion of the current that passes along each of them is inversely, as its length and the total intensity of the current is the same as if a single wire of the length

$\backslash frac\{L\}\{L+L\text{'}\}$ were substituted for the two. In like manner, if $R$, $r$, are the resistances in any two conductors, the total resistance will be $\backslash frac\{Rr\}\{R+r\}$. The two conductors must be both metallic or both liquid.

This law is the result of the preceding ones, and has been confirmed by experiment.

The theory of what is called derived or diverted currents is a consequence of this law. A current is said to be derived, when in a closed circuit two points of it are connected by another conductor, called by Mr Wheatstone a branch conductor. By the theory of Ohm, Mr Wheatstone has shown that the four intensities in the different parts of the compound circuit will be

In these formulae, $L$ represents the reduced length of the portion of the circuit from which the current is partly derived, $L\text{'}$ that of the diverting wire, and that of the principal or undivided current, the force of the original current before the branch was introduced, $I\text{'}$ that of the principal portion $L$, $I\text{'}\text{'}$ that of the portion $L\text{'}$, from which the current was partly diverted, and $I\text{'}\text{'}\text{'}$ that of the branch $L\text{'}$ which diverts the current.

The laws which regulate the properties of derived or diverted currents have been applied by Mr Wheatstone to the construction of very beautiful instruments and apparatus which he has used for determining with great precision the constants of a voltaic circuit. In the valuable paper in which he has described these instruments and the processes in which they are used, he has employed some new terms which it will be convenient to explain. Ampere had em-

Voltaic Electricity. played the term reophore, from reos, to flow, and phos, to carry, to designate the connecting wire of a voltaic battery, from its being the cause of the current; and Peclet had proposed the word rheometer, which has been adopted by French writers as synonymous with galvanometer. Mr Wheatstone uses rheometer to denote any apparatus whatever which originates an electric current, and he calls a single pair or element in a battery a rheomotive element, and a voltaic or thermo-electric battery a rheomotive series. An instrument which periodically interrupts a current he calls a rheotome, and an instrument which alternately inverts it, a rheotrope. An instrument which simply indicates the existence of an electric current he names a reoscope, while he gives the name of rheostat to an instrument for adjusting or regulating a voltaic circuit, so that any constant degree of force may be obtained.

Mr Wheatstone's rheostats. In the important paper to which we have referred, he has described two rheostats for measuring the electromotive forces and resistance of a circuit, the one intended for circuits in which the resistance is considerable, and the other where it is small.

Rheostat for considerable resistance. The first of these is shown in fig. 52, and consists of

three parts, A the rheostat, B a delicate galvanometer, with an astatic needle, and a microscope, M, for reading off the divisions of the circle, and C, the rheometer. In the rheostat, g, is a cylinder of wood, and h one of brass of the same diameter, and with their axes parallel. A spiral groove is cut in the wood cylinder, and at one end of it is fixed a brass ring, to which is attached one of the ends of a long and slender wire, which, when coiled round the wood cylinder, fills the entire groove, and is fixed at its other end to the farther end of the brass cylinder. Two springs, j and k, pressing one against the brass ring, and the other against the end of the brass cylinder h, are connected with the wires of the circuit by two binding screws. The moveable handle m, when on the cylinder h, and turned to the right, uncoils the wire from g, and coils it upon h, and when placed on g, and turned to the left, it produces the reverse effect. The coils on g being insulated by the groove which separates them, the current passes through the entire length of the wire upon that cylinder, but the coils on the brass cylinder not being insulated, the current passes immediately from the point of the wire which is in contact with the cylinder to the spring k. The effective part of the length of the wire is the variable portion on the wood cylinder.

In the instrument usually employed by Mr Wheatstone, the cylinders are 6 inches long and $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ in diameter, the threads of the screw are the 40th of an inch, and the brass wire the 100th of an inch in diameter. The wire is very thin, and a bad conductor, for the purpose of introducing a greater resistance into the circuit.

By means of a scale which measures the number of coils unwound,—and the fractions of a coil are shown by an index and graduated circle,—we can readily determine the exact length of the wire introduced into the circuit, and the variations which it undergoes. The figure shows the arrangement of the apparatus when ready for an experiment.

The rheometer or voltaic element C consists of a glazed porcelain cell 2 inches square and $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ high, in the centre of which is placed a small porous cylinder of earthenware or wood, filled with a liquid amalgam of zinc, a solution of sulphate of copper occupying the space between the two cells. This arrangement Mr Wheatstone considers as not only constant in action but extremely economical and easy to manipulate.

The rheostat employed by Mr Wheatstone for circuits with feeble resistances, is shown in fig. 53, and consists of three parts A, B, and C; a is a cylinder of dry wood, 10$\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inches long by $3\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$ in diameter, on the surface of which a spiral groove is cut, filled with a copper wire the 16th of an inch thick, forming, as it were, the thread of a screw with 108 coils. A triangular bar of metal, b, is placed above a, carrying a slide, c, which presses against the spiral wire, one end of which is fixed to a brass ring, e, against which presses a spring, f, connected by a binding screw to one end of the circuit, the other end being held by the binding screw, metallically connected with the bar b. The handle, h, causes the slide c to advance or recede along the bar, so that as the slide touches a different point of the wire, a different resistance is introduced into the circuit, namely, the portion of the wire between the slide and its extremity at f.

The thermo-electric circuit, in which this instrument is interposed, is shown at C, and the galvanometer B, which instead of leaving numerous coils of fine wire, as in the one in fig. 52; consists of a single thick plate or wire, with a single convolution. Any rheometer with a small resistance may be substituted for

C. In place of the wooden cylinder in these rheostats, M. Rhumkorff of Paris has introduced cylinders of glass.

Instruments, founded on the same principle as these, were contrived independently by Jacobi and Poggendorff. In that of Jacobi,¹ called a volta-agometer, the variable wire was of platinum, and in that of Poggendorff,² of German silver. Mr Wheatstone's rheostats are more convenient and better known.

M. Jacobi has constructed an agometer with mercury as the standard of resistance, and, as Delarive remarks, has with this instrument measured resistances with a precision which permits of the probable error being diminished to the 100,000th part of the total resistance.

When small differences of resistance are to be measured, the preceding rheostats are inapplicable. The differential galvanometer of M. Becquerel, though theoretically perfect, is not practically useful for this purpose. Mr Wheatstone

Voltaic Electricity. sistance Measurer, which we regret our limits will not permit us to describe. We must therefore refer the reader to his important paper, not only for an account of those and other ingenious instruments, but for an account of the processes which he has employed in obtaining the following results.

1. In conformity with theory, the magnitude of an element produces no difference in its electromotive force.

2. In five small elements charged with five different solutions, the electromotive forces were equal, though the force of the current in each was very different.

3. In conformity with theory, the electromotive force of a circuit is proportional to the number of similar elements of which it is formed, arranged in series.

4. The contrary electromotive force which is introduced into a circuit when a voltameter or decomposing cell is interposed, is constant in 3, 4, 5, 6 elements with decomposing cells, and is to that of a single standard element as 7 : 3.

5. The highest electromotive force of a voltaic element of two metals and one liquid, is when the liquid is the solution of a salt of the negative metal.

6. The proportion of zinc in the liquid amalgam of zinc does not affect the electromotive force of the voltaic element of which it forms a part.

A very high electromotive force was obtained from an element in which the positive metal was amalgam of potassium, and the negative metals chloride of platinum and platinum.

7. A still higher electromotive force may be obtained by employing with the amalgam of potassium, a platinum plate covered with a plate of peroxide of lead, a substance experimented with by Schönbein and Delarive. A rheometric series of ten such elements have an electromotive force equal to 33 of Daniell's battery, and 50 of Wollaston's apparatus.

8. If these metals be taken in their electromotive order, the electromotive force of a voltaic element formed of the two extreme metals is equivalent to the sum of the forces of the two elements formed of the adjacent metals.

9. The electromotive force of a thermo-electric element of bismuth and copper, with the temperature of its opposite joints $32^\{\backslash circ\}$ and $212^\{\backslash circ\}$, is to that of a standard voltaic element of amalgam of zinc, sulphate of copper, and copper, as 1 is to 94.6.

By a different process, Pouillet had found the ratio to be as 1 to 95.¹

SECT. IV.—On the Production of Light, Heat, and Cold, by Voltaic Electricity—the Ignition of Wires.

Electrical light, heat, and ignition. The phenomena of light and heat, and the ignition of metals and wires by ordinary ELECTRICITY, having been fully described under that article, we shall here confine ourselves to the analogous phenomena produced by voltaic currents.

Van Marum, &c. Soon after the discovery of the pile, Van Marum, Pfaff, and Tromsdorff discovered that thin leaves and fine wires of metal placed between the poles of a pile, became incandescent, and even burned, while conducting the electrical current; and some time afterwards, M. M. Fourcroy, Vauquelin, and Thenard observed that piles with large plates deflagrated metals more powerfully than piles with a great number of plates of smaller surfaces.

Davy. It was in England, however, that the calorific and luminous effects of the pile were principally developed. In 1813, the immense battery of the Royal Institution, composed of 2000 couples, and exposing 28,000 square inches, enabled Sir H. Davy to produce light and heat of the highest intensity. When the ends of the wire from each pile

terminated in two charcoal points, the most dazzling light passed from the one to the other, and continued for several hours. Steel wires and thin leaves of different metals, were made red hot and burned, and water was boiled by plunging into it an iron wire two feet long and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{100\}$th of an inch in diameter, and placed between the poles of the battery. Platina, sapphire, quartz, and lime, &c., when exposed to this source of heat, were instantly melted, and the diamond and charcoal disappeared, as if they were completely volatilised. These effects were produced in vacuo as well as in air.

By means of the splendid battery described in a preceding part of this article, Mr Children obtained many important and curious results. His experiments commenced in 1809, but it was in 1815 that he brought into play the powerful instrument which we have already mentioned. He found that metallic wires connecting the two piles of the battery became red-hot in the following order:—

And hence Mr Children concluded, that the conducting power of these metals was in the inverse order, silver being the most conducting, and platinum the least.

With this battery, five feet six inches of platinum wire, 0.11 inch in diameter, were brought by Mr Children to a red heat throughout, so as to be visible in daylight.

Eight feet six inches of platinum wire, 0.44 inch in diameter, were heated red.

A bar of platinum $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th of an inch square, and 2.25 inches long, was heated red, and fused at the end.

The oxides of tungsten, uranium, cerium, titanium, and molybdenium, were fused. Having filled an opening in an iron wire with diamond powder, the diamond disappeared, and the iron was converted into steel.² Effects still more powerful have been since obtained by the batteries of Grove and Bunsen.

At the same time that Mr Children was constructing the greatest voltaic battery ever made, Dr Wollaston was occupied in constructing the smallest. He took a small thimble, as we have already stated, and having removed the bottom, he flattened the remaining cylinder, till its sides were about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th of an inch distant. He then placed between these two surfaces a small plate of zinc, which did not touch either side of the thimble. With a platinum wire about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch long, and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{100\}$th of an inch in diameter, he united externally the plate of zinc with this thimble; and when this little galvanic couple was immersed in acidulated water, the platinum wire became red-hot, and was melted! This important result led Dr Wollaston to the valuable conclusion, that in order to obtain powerful calorific effects, we must increase the surface of the copper or negative metal.

In repeating the experiments of Davy on the light developed by charcoal points, M. Brandes discovered that this light, like that of the sun, affected the combination of chlorine and hydrogen, and the decomposition of muriate of silver and other bodies.

By means of the powerful voltaic battery which Dr Hare calls a deflagrator, and which we have already described, this able chemist obtained some splendid results. A brilliant light, equal to that of the sun, was produced between charcoal points; and plumbago and charcoal were fused by Professors Silliman and Griscom. By a series of 250, baryta was deflagrated; and a platina wire, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ths of an inch in thickness, "was made to flow like water." In the experiments with charcoal, the charcoal on the copper side had no appearance of fusion, but a crater-shaped cavity was formed within it, indicating that the charcoal was volatilised at this side, and transferred to the other, where it was condensed

¹ Éléments de Phys. Exp., ed. 3, tome i. p. 631.

² See Phil. Trans. 1815.

Voltaic Electricity. and fused, the piece of charcoal at this pile being elongated considerably. This fused charcoal was four times denser than before fusion.

Fusion of charcoal. Owing to its superior conducting power, a continued voltaic current will maintain in a state of incandescence a greater length of silver wire than of platinum or iron; but if we form a wire of short pieces of silver and platinum wire alternately, the platinum portion will become red-hot, while the silver ones remain cold. In this case, the current which passes readily along the silver wire, encounters the degree of obstruction in the platinum which produces the red heat. This fact is no doubt connected with the very remarkable one observed by M. Peltier, in the passage of weak currents through metallic circuits, where cold was produced at the points of junction of certain crystallizable metals.

Peltier. In his experiments with liquids, Oersted found that the elevation of temperature was 36°9 at the positive pile, 32°4 at the negative pile, and 41°4 in the middle. This curious result was obtained also by M. Delarive, who, at the same time, observed that the heat in the interior of a liquid placed in the circuit was increased by dividing it into several compartments by diaphragms of bladder or gold-beater's skin, that it was higher in the middle compartment, and that in each compartment it was 4° higher close to the diaphragm than elsewhere. A current passing through a liquid column in a glass tube produces a temperature which is stationary, while the same current passing through a skein of cotton of the same length and diameter produces a temperature which rises considerably, owing to the cells of the copper in which the liquid lodges.

Delarive. Liquids, like solids, which are the worst conductors, are the most heated by electrical currents, a result arising from the resistance which the current experiences.

Sir W. Harris. The laws which regulate the calorific effects by static electricity, have been studied by Sir W. Snow Harris and M. Riess. The results obtained by Sir William have been given in our article ELECTRICITY. Those of Riess, more recently made, are represented by the following general law:—

M. Riess. "The elevation of temperature $T$ of the normal section of a homogeneous wire inserted in the circuit of a battery is inversely as the fourth power of its radius $r$, and directly as the quantity $q$ of electricity accumulated, divided by $z$, the time of the discharge, that is—

$a$ being a constant quantity depending on the nature of the wire.

The production of heat by the continuous currents of dynamic electricity depends, as Delarive observes, upon the construction of the apparatus, whereas, in static electricity it depends only on the conductor that forms the arc for joining over the battery, and the extent of its surface. With a voltaic pile, the apparatus forms a part of the circuit traversed by the current, as well as the wire that is heated, and all the conductors by which these wires are connected with the poles, whilst with a Leyden battery the case is different. Another difference, continues Delarive, which renders all comparison difficult, is, that the discharge must be instantaneous, whilst the current has a certain duration, so that the slow escape of the same quantity of electricity does not produce the same calorific effect as when this electricity, instead of coming from a pile, is derived from an electrical machine, or a Leyden battery. Notwithstanding these differences, some of the laws which regulate the calorific phenomena of a continuous current are the same as those obtained in electrical discharges.

According to the experiments of Joule, Lenz, and Becquerel, the caloric liberated by a current of voltaic electricity propagated in a given time along a metallic conduc-

tor, is proportional to the resistance of the conductor multiplied by the square of the electric intensity or the force of Electricity.

Another law, established by Peltier and confirmed by Becquerel is, that whatever be the length of a conducting wire, if it transmit the same quantity of electricity in the same time, the temperature of each of its points is the same.

A series of valuable experiments were made by Dr Robinson of Armagh,¹ to ascertain the influence which the Dr Robinson's experiments. heating of the wire has upon its resistance to the electric current. The result of these is, that when a wire is heated by a voltaic current, its resistance to the passage of the current gradually increases till the wire is fused, and that this increase is exactly proportional to the temperature. Dr Robinson found also, that the true law of the heating of a wire by a current was, that the heat liberated is proportional to the square of the intensity of the current and to the actual resistance of the wire, namely, the resistance arising from its heating.

The influence of the gaseous medium on the heat liberated by a wire transmitting a voltaic current has been studied by Mr Grove. It was well known that a platinum wire becomes red-hot more easily in vacuo than in air; but Mr Grove obtained the following results, or the number of experiments, to which water becomes heated by surrounding the platinum wire successively with different gases:—

While in static electricity, we have the interesting phenomenon of the electric spark, already discussed in the article ELECTRICITY, we have in voltaic electricity the no less interesting phenomenon of the voltaic arch, which was discovered by Davy. It is represented at a b, in the annexed figure, as produced between two charcoal points Davy.

Fig. 54.

4 inches distant, transmitting a current from 2000 pairs of zinc and copper, having each a surface of 32 square inches charged with acidulated water. It has the form of an arc convex above, and when the most refractory substances were placed in it, they became incandescent, and disappeared as if by evaporation. When one of the points, a, was charcoal and the other, b, plumbago, the particles of charcoal were transferred in the state of vapour to the plumbago, from the positive to the negative pole, and by interchanging the poles the plumbago was transported to the positive pole, as first shown by Dr Hare.

The appearance and length of the arc varies with the nature of the electrodes or points a, b, between which it appears. Mr Grove found that the longest and most brilliant arc, when shown in air, was produced when the electrodes were potassium, sodium, zinc, mercury, iron, tin, lead, antimony, bismuth, copper, silver, gold, and platinum, the first giving the largest and brightest arc, and the rest as in their order. Mr Grove also observed, that in vacuo the transported matter was in the state of metallic powder when the medium was hydrogen, nitrogen, or a vacuum, and an oxide in air or in oxygen.

¹ Irish Trans. vol. xxii. p. 3.

Voltaic Electricity. Many interesting phenomena have been observed, in reference to the voltaic arc of the transportation of the molecules of the electrodes, by Von Breda, Delarive, Grove, Gassiot, Matteucci, and Tyrtow. Von Breda found, that in the case of an electrical discharge, there was an emanation of particles from both poles, though more powerfully from the negative. In the case of a thick and insulated plate of iron placed in vacuo between two copper balls as electrodes, the negative ball gained $4\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ grains of iron from the plate, and the positive only 1 grain.

M. Delarive has given the following summary of the leading facts respecting the effects of dynamic electricity:—

"1. That the production of electric heat and light cannot take place without the establishment of a closed circuit, all the parts of which exercise the same exterior electrodynamic action, conformably with Ohm's laws.

"2. That this production of electric heat and light cannot take place without the establishment of a closed circuit, all the parts of which exercise the same exterior electrodynamic action, conformably with Ohm's laws.

"3. That this production takes place in the points of the circuit where the electricity in motion (whether discharge or current) experiences the greatest resistance.

"4. That the parts of the conductors which limit the portions of the circuit where the resistance is greatest, and where, consequently, the heat and light arise, undergo calorific, luminous, and molecular modifications, which depend at the same time upon their proper nature, and upon that of the electricity (positive or negative) of which they are the electrodes.

"5. That these modifications seem to indicate, that the movement of rotation of the particles, whose acceleration, produced by the transmission of electricity, is the probable cause of electric light and heat, is influenced either by the nature itself of the substances, or by the direction of the discharge or of the current, which determines, in the case of the spark and of the arc, a movement of transmission over and above that of rotation."¹

SECT. V.—On the Chemical Effects of Voltaic Electricity.

In a preceding article we have given a full account of the general chemical effects of ordinary electricity. We shall therefore confine ourselves at present to the chemical effects of the voltaic pile. No sooner was this apparatus made known in England, than Messrs Nicholson and Carlisle applied it to chemical inquiries. Although Volta had inferred from the shock, that the action of the pile was electrical, yet it was to the above inquirers that we are indebted for determining by means of the revolving doubler, that the silver end of the battery was in a negative, and the zinc end in a positive state of electricity. In the course of their experiments, they observed a disengagement of gas, which smelt of hydrogen, from water which happened to be in the circuit; and on the 2d of May 1800, they discovered that water was decomposed into its elements, viz., oxygen and hydrogen, when the water formed part of the circuit between the positive and negative ends of the pile. Mr Cruickshanks of Woolwich confirmed this result, and found that hydrogen was always emitted from the silver or copper end of the pile, and oxygen from the other. He discovered also the important fact, that metals could be revived from their solutions, under the same circumstances, the reduced metal being deposited at the end of the wire; and he succeeded in decomposing some of the neutral salts. Dr Henry decomposed the nitric and sulphuric acids and ammonia; and he reduced the oxymuriatic to the state of muriatic acid.

The attention of our illustrious countryman, Sir H. Voltaic Electricity. Davy, was about this time attracted to the subject. So early as 1802, he had made experiments on the chemical agency of the pile; but in 1806, in his first Bakerian Lecture, he was led to the conclusion, that chemical attraction and repulsion were produced by the same cause, acting in the one case on particles, in the other on masses, and that the same property, under different circumstances, was the cause of all the phenomena exhibited by different voltaic combinations. In October 1807, he decomposed potash and soda, and proved that they were oxides of two new metals, potassium and sodium. With a voltaic battery of 2000 plates, he decomposed several of the earths, and discovered their metallic bases, barium, strontium, calcium, and magnesium. In attempting to decompose the proper earths, he was less successful. He succeeded in proving, however, that they consist of bases united to oxygen, but the completion of the inquiry was left to Wohler, Bussy, and Berzelius, who found that all the bases of these earths, except silica, were metallic, and capable of uniting with iron.²

Our narrow limits will not permit us to give an account of the successive labours of different philosophers, in effecting decompositions by the voltaic battery. We shall content ourselves with giving a brief account of the researches of our distinguished countryman, Dr Faraday, to whom this branch of science owes its greatest acquisitions.

The phenomena of electro-chemical decompositions have been generally ascribed to two opposite powers, residing in the two poles of the voltaic battery. Grotthus³ regards the pile as an electric magnet with attracting and repelling poles, the one attracting hydrogen and repelling oxygen, and the other attracting oxygen and repelling hydrogen. The force exerted upon each molecule of the body is supposed to be inversely as its distance from the poles, and a succession of decompositions and recompositions is supposed to exist among the intervening molecules. Sir H. Davy adopts the idea of attractions at the poles, diminishing to the middle or neutral points, and he thinks a succession of decompositions and recompositions probable. Messrs Riffault and Champre regard the negative current as collecting and carrying the acids on to the positive pole, and the positive current as doing the same, with the bases towards the negative pole. M. Biot attributes the effects to the opposite electrical states of the decomposing substances in the vicinity of the two poles. M. Delarive considers the portions decomposed to be those contiguous to both poles, the current from the positive pole combining with the hydrogen or the bases which are there present, and leaving the oxygen or acids at liberty, but carrying the substances in union with it across to the negative pole, where it is separated from them, entering the conducting metal, and leaving on its surface the hydrogen, or its bases. Dr Faraday regards the poles as exercising no specific action, but merely as surfaces or doors by which the electricity enters into or passes out of the substance undergoing decomposition. He supposes that "the effects are due to a modification of the electric current, and the chemical affinity of the particles through or by which that current is passing, giving them the power of acting more forcibly in one direction than in another, and consequently making them travel by a series of successive decompositions and recompositions in opposite directions, and finally causing their expulsion or exclusion at the boundaries of the body under decomposition in the direction of the current, and that in larger or smaller quantities, according as the current is more or less powerful."

In resolving a compound body into its elements, liquidity is an essential condition of the body. A plate of iron, the

¹ Delarive's Electricity, vol. ii. p. 333.

² See our articles CHEMISTRY and DAVY for a full account of Sir Humphry Davy's electro-chemical researches.

³ Ann. de Chim. 1806, tome lviii. p. 61.

Voltaic sixteenth of an inch thick, placed between the two sides of the pile, will stop completely the most powerful electrical current.

When the elements of a body are separated by electric action, the current communicates to each a definite direction, the oxygen travelling towards the zinc, and the hydrogen towards the platina pole.

By an irresistible body of evidence, Dr Faraday has established the important proposition, "that the chemical power of a current of electricity is in direct proportion to the absolute quantity which passes;" and this is true of all bodies capable of electro-chemical decomposition.

The same eminent philosopher has also deduced, from a variety of facts, the following conclusion, "that the quantity of electricity, which, being naturally associated with the particles of matter, gives them their combining power, is able, when thrown into a current, to separate these particles from their state of combination; or, in other words, that the electricity which decomposes, and that which is evolved by the decomposition of a certain quantity of matter, are alike." According to this theory, "the equivalent weights of bodies are simply those quantities of them which contain equal quantities of electricity, or have naturally equal electric powers, it being the electricity which determines the equivalent number, because it determines the combining force; or if we adopt the atomic theory or phraseology, then the atoms of bodies which are equivalents to each other in their ordinary chemical action, have equal quantities of electricity naturally associated with them."

When exposed to the voltaic current, bodies are decomposed with different degrees of facility. Dr Faraday found by experiment, that the following bodies were decomposed with currents of different intensities, those at the top of the list being decomposed by currents of lowest intensity.

All compound bodies are not decomposable by electric currents. The following bodies are not decomposed under ordinary circumstances:—

The following bodies are not decomposed:—

All solid non-conductors which become conductors when liquefied by heat, with the exception of periodide of mercury, are decomposed.

Mr Faraday is of opinion that all binary compounds, one of whose elements goes to the negative, and the other to the positive pole, are decomposable, but not ternary compounds.

The following bodies, being non-conductors of electricity, are not decomposed by it:—

The perchlorides of mercury and of antimony, being conductors when liquid, are decomposable; but periodide of mercury, though a conductor when liquid, is not decomposable.

The following bodies are not decomposable by voltaic electricity:—

The following table contains a list of the elementary constituents of decomposable bodies, with their electro-chemical equivalents:—

The laws of electro-chemical decomposition have been more recently studied and extended by Daniell, Matteucci, Becquerel, and Miller, and apparent exceptions to them have been removed by the researches of Kitsorff, Beetz, Almeida, and Ruff; so that the law of chemical equivalents has been confirmed within the limits of errors of observation.

The influence of the electrodes on chemical decomposition has been the subject of careful research by Delarive, Fechner, Boggendorff, Vossellmann, De Peer, Lemy, Jacob, Meidinger, Despretz, Grove, and others, of which a full account has been given by Delarive.² It follows from these researches that the chemical affinity of the substance of the electrode for one or other of the elements of the electrolyte, facilitate its decomposition and the passage of the current,—a property which Becquerel has successfully applied to the production of various compounds arising from the combination of the electrodes with one of the elements liberated by the current,—compounds obtained by using only small electric force, such as that of a single pair.

Very remarkable movements, especially in mercury, have been observed in electrolytic liquids during the passage of the current, and have been studied by Davy, Serullas, Herschel, Nobili, Porret, and Wiedemann. The process of Nobili consists in plunging a drop of mercury into a bottle of sulphuric acid, and touching it at the edges with the extremity of an iron wire, or any other easily oxidisable metal. The drop immediately contracts, and ceases to touch the iron; then, resuming its natural form, it comes anew to meet the iron point, to contract, and again to expand; thus continuing an alternate motion of contraction and dilatation so long as the voltaic action of the three elements of the pair continues, namely, mercury, iron, acid.

From the experiments of Porret, it follows that a liquid traversed by an electric current travels from the positive to the negative pole, provided that it presents a certain resistance to the passage of the current; and Wiedemann found

¹ Faraday's Experimental Researches, p. 247, § 846.

² Electricity, vol. ii. part iv. chap. iv.; vol. ii. pp. 394-424.

Voltaic Electricity. that the quantities transported in equal times were proportional to the intensities of the current. When a liquid is transported through a porous partition, the force of transport, according to Wiedemann, is measured by a hydrostatic pressure directly proportional to the intensity of the current, to the electric resistance of the liquid, and to the thickness of the partition, and inversely proportional to the surface of the partition.

Graham. Mr Graham considers ordinary endosmose as produced by the electricity of chemical action.¹

Combination of gases by metals. In the course of his electrical researches, Dr Faraday² discovered the very remarkable fact, that metals and other bodies had the power of promoting the combination of gaseous bodies.

Faraday. When a plate of clean platinum was put into a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gas, the two gases gradually disappeared, in consequence of having united and formed water. When the platinum plate was made very clean, by placing it in sulphuric acid, it acted with such energy on the gases, that the tube became warm, the platinum became red-hot, and the residue of the gases was inflamed. A solution of tartaric or acetic acids gave the platinum plate the power of producing explosion in the mixed gases, but strong sulphuric acid was most certain and powerful. Gold and palladium, when acted on by hot oil of vitriol, possess also the power of combining oxygen and hydrogen.

Dobereiner. Dobereiner had previously discovered the remarkable property possessed by platinum, which, in the state of a fine black powder, or spongy, became hot, and ignited a jet of hydrogen. This is the well-known instantaneous light apparatus. The following is the theory of these remarkable facts:—The particles of hydrogen repel each other, so do those of oxygen; but the strong adhesion of the gaseous particles to the platina suspends, as it were, upon its surface the above repulsive forces, and brings the particles of oxygen and hydrogen within the influence of their mutual affinity.

Spongy platinum also decomposes ammonia and its salts, when mixed with atmospheric air, and passed over the metal at 572° of Fahr. Non-metallic bodies, such as pounded glass and charcoal, have, at 600° Fahr., the same property as platinum.

SECT. VI.—On the Stratification in Electric Discharges.

Stratification of electric light. Davy. When the voltaic arc is formed in a vacuum, by making the electric current pass through a globe or cylinder of glass, as in the experiment called the electric egg, Davy found that the arc was about 6 or 7 inches long, double of what it was in air, and fully as vivid. When the air in the globe is sufficiently rarefied, and the current passes between a crescent-shaped piece of metal, with a number of angular projections, and a circular segment of metal with corresponding projections, the interior of the globe is filled with a magnificent light, and like the aurora borealis, columns of fire dart from the projections of the one plate to those of the other.

Grove. When Mr Grove made the electrical current, produced by Ruhmkorff's inductive coil, pass through an exhausted receiver containing a small piece of phosphorus, the luminous discharge was striated throughout its course by transverse non-luminous bands. On subsequently repeating the experiment, he found "that the transverse bands can be produced in other gases, when very much attenuated, though they are more easily seen in the phosphorus vapour." When these bands are barely visible, he observed a well-defined dark space "intervening between the glow sur-

rounding the negative, and the stream of light proceeding from the positive terminal." This dark space he regards as the same as the dark discharge described by Faraday, as produced by the electrical machine.³

This stratification of the discharge was subsequently observed by Ruhmkorff in the vapour of alcohol, and by Masson, Du Moncel, Quet, Seguin, Dr Robinson, and M. Gassiot, who has studied it with great care in the Torricellian vacuum. In Du Moncel's figures, the strata are concave towards the positive terminal, gradually becoming parallel towards the centre, and then concave to the negative, whereas, in Dr Robinson's figure, they are all positive towards the positive.

The phenomenon of the stratified discharge, as produced in the Torricellian vacuum, and observed by M. Gassiot,⁴ is shown in fig. 55, the upper wire being positive and the lower negative. When the mercury is allowed to rise, so as to cover the negative wire, the stratification disappears, and the interior of the globe is filled with bluish light. When four or five cells only are used to excite the coil instead of one or two, and the discharges are made sudden, the lower portion of the strata were observed by M. Gassiot, as shown in fig. 56.

With the vacuum tubes constructed by M. Giesler of Bonn, the stratifications from the inductive discharge are most beautifully and strikingly exhibited.

M. M. Quet and Seguin⁵ have found that the luminous strata are produced when the electricity of a Leyden phial, feebly charged, is transmitted through a Giesler tube. If the charge is powerful, an unstratified flow of light is produced by the first discharge, but subsequent ones more feeble fill the whole tube with stratified light. If the Giesler tube is turned into a condenser, by covering it with tinfoil, and if it is charged as a Leyden phial with ordinary electricity, the luminous strata will appear in the rarefied gas which the tube contains, where the tube is uncovered, and upon the armature of tin, when the second conductor communicates with the ground. The strata appear even if we replace the tin by the hand grasping the tube. The tube may be charged by the electrophorus.

If, when the stratification is produced by the inductive current, we grasp the tube with two fingers, so as to embrace it, or surround it with a sheet of tinfoil communicating with the ground, the brilliant strata separate from one another in front of the conductor on the side of the positive pole, and there is formed on the side of the conductor a large obscure stratum. With a feeble pile, and by supporting the hammer, this stratum may have a length of nearly 2½ inches. When the tinfoil or the fingers are moved to the positive pole, the strata in front of them enter into one another, while they seem to emerge from one another, if these conductors are moved towards the positive

¹ See Delarive's Electricity, 1d. ed. chap. iv. pp. 424-443.

² Phil. Trans. 1852, or Phil. Mag. Dec. 1852, Suppl. p. 514.

³ Comptes Rendus, Ac., Dec. 15, 1858, tome xvii. p. 964.

⁴ Id. id. p. 195, § 564, Ac.

⁵ Phil. Trans. 1858, p. 7.

Voltaic pole. In these experiments the conductors—viz., the hand electricity, and the tinfoil—are electrified by influence.

The influence of a magnet upon the voltaic arc and upon the luminous strata is very remarkable. Arago, after the discovery of electro-magnetism, suspected this influence, but Davy proved it on an arc from 1 to 4 inches long. A powerful magnet attracted or repelled with a rotatory movement the arc or luminous column, according to the position of the pole of the magnet and the direction of the current. An electro-magnet acted more energetically; and Daniell observed that the effect was sometimes so great as to extinguish the flame. In 1858, Mr Grove¹ found that in a vacuum tube, 2 feet 9 inches long, he could stop the discharge in a Rhumkoff's coil by bringing a magnet near the positive terminal wire, while no effect was produced when the magnet approached the negative; but M. Gassiot has not been able to produce this effect in any of his vacuum tubes by the induction coil, however much he reduced the intensity of the discharge or varied that of the electro-magnet.

He succeeded, however, in obtaining a similar result by the use of his water-battery, after having carefully cleaned it and recharged it with rain-water. In an apparatus with two carbonic acid vacuum tubes containing potash, he found that the luminous discharge in both tubes, obtained with less than 1000 series, and also with the full series of 3520 cells, was, under certain conditions which he has described, entirely destroyed or interrupted by the power of the magnet.²

The cause of the stratifications of electric light has not been satisfactorily established. Mr Grove supposed that they might be owing to interference. M. Gassiot thinks, that the stratifications in the positive discharge do not arise from interference, but from a succession of impulses or pulsations, from the force meeting a resisting medium; but "he ventures to assume, that the dark discharge between the positive and the negative arises from interference."

SECT. VII.—On the Vibratory Movements and Sounds produced by Electric Currents.

So early as 1785, the Canon Gottoin of Como, a friend of Volta's, observed, that an iron wire 30 feet long, when stretched in the open air, emitted a sound in certain states of the atmosphere. Page, Delezenne, Gassiot, and Mariani, observed sounds from electric currents under different circumstances; but it is to Delarive that we owe the most interesting experiments on the subject. When a magnetic but unmagnetised body, such as iron or steel, is placed in the interior of a bobbin, very remarkable rotatory movements are produced by discontinuous currents passing through the wire which encircles the bobbin. Two sounds are always distinguished, one a series of blows or shocks, like the noise of rain falling on a metal roof, and the other musical. A mass of iron 4 inches in diameter, and weighing 22 lb., placed within a large tube, gave out a very clear and brilliant musical sound; but the most brilliant of all are those obtained by stretching on a sounding-board well annealed wires from 3 to 6 feet long, and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{16\}$th of an inch in diameter. From these and the fine experiments of Wertheim it follows,—"that magnetisation in the passage of the electric current produces a molecular derangement in magnetic bodies, and that the sounds arise from the oscillations of the particles of bodies round their positions of equilibrium, under the influence of currents, whether exterior or transmitted."

Sounds of a different kind have been observed by Quet and Delarive, during the action of magnetism upon the voltaic arc. With a vertical voltaic arc, which Quet formed between the two vertical polar faces of an electro-magnet, he saw it transform itself into a horizontal dart, like the

flame made by a blowpipe, and the formation of the dart was attended by a peculiar whizzing, which lasts as long as the dart, and which is changed into a very powerful detonation when the dart ceases. Delarive supposes that the hissing is due to the transport of the matter of the positive electrode more or less liquefied; and that the detonations arise from the tearing off of these same particles, when the substance which is disaggregated is not highly heated. But what is very extraordinary, he adds, is, that the hissing and detonations take place only when the arc is under the action of the magnet.

A remarkable vibratory motion produced by electricity was observed by Mr Fearn of Birmingham, in his electro-gilding establishment. When a brass tube 4 feet long and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ an inch in diameter was placed upon, and at right angles to, two horizontal and parallel brass tubes 9 feet long and an inch in diameter, and the latter connected with a strong voltaic battery of from two to twenty pair of large zinc and carbon elements, the transverse tube immediately began to vibrate, and finally to roll upon the other two.

Mr G. Gore, who repeated the experiment under various circumstances, found that when the resistance was small and uniform, the rolling tube continued to move in the same direction imparted to it; but that when the resistances were not uniform, it continued to roll backwards and forwards as long as the electric current was passing.

In order to obtain a continuous rolling motion, Mr Gore constructed the apparatus in fig. 57, where A is a circular

Fig. 57.

base of wood provided with two brass rails or hoops, B and C, about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch thick, the outer one being $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th of an inch higher than the other, and both being uniform and equidistant. F is a perfectly round thin copper ball, hollow, equally thick, and weighing about 500 grains.

When the circular base, EA, is made level, the ball F placed upon the rails, and a voltaic current, copious in quantity and moderate in intensity, introduced at the screws D and E, the ball will immediately begin to vibrate, and increase its motions till it revolves upon the rails. It revolves with equal facility in either direction as long as the current is passing, and it becomes much heated during its motion. With three zinc and carbon batteries, the zinc cylinders being 6 inches high and $3\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ wide, and strongly charged with dilute sulphuric and strong nitric acids, the ball was propelled at the rate of sixteen revolutions per minute.

¹ Phil. Mag. 1858, vol. xvi. p. 18.

² Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. x. p. 269.

Voltaic Electricity. "In all cases yet observed," says Mr Gore, "the motion has been attended by a peculiar crackling sound at the surfaces of contact, and by the heating of the rolling metal; and in experiments on a large scale with thick tubes, strong vibrations, accompanied by the emission of musical sounds, were observed similar in a moderate degree to Trevelyan's experiment with heated metals. In a dark place, sparks appeared occasionally at the points of contact." He considers "the cause of the motion to be an intermittent thermic action taking place at the surfaces of contact, at a point a minute distance behind the centre of gravity of the rolling metal."¹

Trevelyan. Mr Trevelyan's experiment here referred to consists in placing a heated bar of iron with one end on a solid block of lead. The bar in cooling vibrates considerably, and produces sounds similar to those of an Aolian harp.² Professor Forbes³ referred this class of vibrations to "a repulsive action exercised in the transmission of heat from one body into another, which has a less power of conducting it;" but having been led by Mr Gore's paper to repeat the experiment, by passing an electric current through the hot and cold metal, he found that energetic vibrations took place like those in the ordinary form of the experiment. The vibrations took place whatever was the direction of the electric current, and between metals of the same kind, as well as heterogeneous metals. When a brass bar vibrating on cold lead was heated, and electricity applied as before, the effects are superadded to one another whichever way the current passes, and if there is a musical note it becomes grave. The effect from electricity he considers to be due to the repulsive action of the electricity in passing from the one metal to the other, which he regards as a confirmation of his explanation of the calorific vibrations. In extending his experiments, he found that carbon resting upon brass gave very energetic vibrations, and that bismuth is not merely inactive as a vibrator, but during the passage of electricity through it has a quelling power, which brings the vibrating bar to instantaneous rest.⁴

SECT. VIII.—On Electro-chemical Decompositions by weak Electric Currents.

Effects of weak electric currents. The precipitation of metals from their solutions, by the presence of other metals, has been long known. A plate of copper, for example, will throw down metallic silver from a solution of the nitrate. Ritter, Sylvester, and Bucholz found that these precipitations were owing to electric currents, and obtained some interesting results. It is to M. Becquerel, however, a distinguished member of the Institute of France, that we owe the successful investigation of this curious subject. In 1826, he found that, by very feeble electric forces, metals easily reducible were precipitated from their solutions by plates of the same metal as that held in solution. In 1827, he formed chlorides and iodides in the same way, and also double chlorides and double iodides. In 1829, he succeeded in forming sulphurets, iodides, and bromides by similar methods; and when the electric energy of the apparatus was exceedingly feeble and the decomposition slow, the sulphurets had time to assume a regular crystalline form, and he thus obtained crystals of almost all the metals. In a similar manner, he obtained distinct crystals of the metallic iodides.

In 1830, M. Becquerel found that new compounds were formed during these processes, by the reaction of the oxide of the metal at the positive pole of a solution. By the reaction of two solutions, one of which was the sulpho-

carbonate of potash, and the other the sulphate of copper, Voltaic Electricity. and by employing an arc of copper and lead, the copper Electricity. plunging into the sulphate, and the lead into the sulpho-carbonate, he succeeded in depositing on the lead small octahedral crystals of sulphur, with rhomboidal faces, exactly of M. Becquerel. similar to the natural crystals of this substance. In this quest, manner, by a skilful combination of solutions and metallic arcs, and a profound knowledge of the reactions which arise from the contact of these different substances, he succeeded in obtaining, in a crystalline state, compounds which had never been procured under that form.

M. Becquerel has been equally successful in reducing the bases of certain oxides, and in obtaining immediately from their solutions, in their metallic, and even crystallised state, iron, zirconium, glucium, and magnesium. In 1832, he also obtained crystals of metallic oxides, such as those of the anhydrous black oxide of copper, of the red oxide, of the protoxide and peroxide of lead, and the oxide of cobalt.

The same distinguished philosopher has employed the effects of weak electric forces to explain the process of cementation by which iron is converted into steel, by the combination of carbon with all the interior molecules of the iron; and that remarkable mineralogical process by which the elements of many rocks are transferred from within to without, and replaced by others without any disintegration. The process of cementation is the consequence of the opposite electric state of the carbon and the iron, which, with the aid of high temperature, produces electric currents that convey the atoms of carbon from molecule to molecule to the very interior of the iron. In like manner, pieces of iron, which have been buried in the metallic state, are almost wholly oxidated; and ancient copper medals have been found changed entirely into the protoxide of copper.

By studying this class of phenomena, M. Becquerel has been led to an explanation of the phenomena of phosphorescence, which he ascribes to the recomposition of the natural electricities of each molecule, which have been separated by heat or some other cause. The restoration of phosphorescence to bodies that have lost this property, or that never possessed it, by repeated electrical discharges, as ascertained by Mr Pearsal, confirms the ingenious explanation of M. Becquerel.⁵

Our countryman, Mr Andrew Crosse of Bromfield, by Mr Crosse's processes differing from those of Becquerel, arrived at experimental results, not long after the publication of the discoveries of the French philosopher. There can be no doubt, however, that Mr Crosse was unacquainted with these discoveries, and that his results were entirely independent of them. By means of voltaic electricity, he obtained the following substances, namely, calcareous spar, aragonite, quartz, red oxide of copper, arseniate of copper, blue carbonate of copper, phosphate of copper, sulphuret of copper, carbonate of lead, sulphuret of silver, carbonate of zinc, chalcedony, oxide of tin, yellow oxide of lead, the sulphurets of antimony and zinc and iron, protoxide of iron, and crystals of sulphur.

SECT. IX.—On the Coloured Rings formed on Polished Metallic Plates by Voltaic Currents.

This new class of phenomena are remarkable from their Nobili's ex- beauty and singularity, as discovered by M. Nobili, and experiments called by him Electro-chemical appearances. They may be produced by a small battery like that of Wollaston, with twelve elements of an inch square, in the manner shown Discoveries in fig. 58. A small apparatus, not shown in the figure, is of M. Nobili.

¹ Phil. Mag. July 1858, Suppl. vol. xv. p. 519.

² Edin. Trans. vol. xii. p. 459.

³ See Ann. de Chimie et de Phys. tome xxxiv. p. 152; xxxv. 126; xlii. 225; xliii. 131; xlvii. 5, 13; xlviii. 337; lii. 181; liii. 105, 243. See also Becquerel's Traité de l'Electricité, &c. tom. iv. v.

⁴ Edin. Trans. vol. xii. p. 187.

⁵ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Jan. 1859.

Voltaic Electricity. constructed so as to move up and down the pincers RS, which hold two pieces of large platinum wire PN, pointed at their extremity, the one communicating with the positive, and the other with the negative pole of the battery. A polished metallic plate AB, intended to receive the coloured rings, is placed horizontally in a saucer or plate which contains the fluid to be used, suppose a solution of sulphate of copper.

Rings from sulphate of copper. When the solution of copper is poured into the saucer above the silver plate AB, and the point of one of the wires N brought as near as possible to n, while the other point p is plunged in the solution, there will be formed round the point n, four or five concentric circles, alternately bright and dark. When the point p is used, there will be formed round it three small circles of copper. The two extreme circles are of a deep red colour, and the middle one of a higher colour; sometimes four or five are formed, which alternate like the preceding.

Acetate of lead. When a solution of acetate of lead is used, and the plate of gold or silver is positive, while the point is negative, the concentric rings are as brilliant as the coloured rings of Newton. When we increase the number of negative points, there are formed as many systems as there are points of concentric wires or rings, which never cross each other, but which, when they meet, extend outwards so as to form only one exterior ring.

Acetate of copper. The effects are the reverse with a solution of acetate of copper, that is, the concentric rings are formed only when the plates are negative, while positive plates exhibit nothing remarkable.

Urine. When the fluid is urine and the plate silver and positive, several orders of very brilliant coloured rings are formed round a dark centre. M. Nobili has obtained very remarkable effects of colour by using different animal substances, such as milk, white and yolk of an egg, saliva, &c.; and vegetable substances, such as the juice of carrots, onions, parsley, grapes, apples, &c. Animal and vegetable substances yield colours more beautiful and brilliant than ordinary chemical solutions. The colours produced by the leaves of plants are more marked than those arising from the decomposition of the roots. In some chemical solutions the phenomena are equally beautiful on the positive as on the negative plate; but when the circles meet, the two figures experience, as it were, a sort of compression, and when the coloured rings are impressed only on one plate, they may be made to disappear, if not wholly, at least in part, by inverting the direction of the current.

M. Nobili has drawn the following conclusions from a great number of experiments:—1. Certain electro-negative substances possess the property, in some circumstances, of attaching themselves to the surface of some of the less oxidable metals, in layers so thin and regular as to exhibit, under an infinity of varied forms, the beautiful phenomena of coloured rings. 2. That when electro-negative substances do not deposit themselves in thin layers on polished metals, they attack their surface, not uniformly, but at regular intervals.

The most varied and remarkable appearances were obtained by M. Nobili when the polished metal was positive; but he succeeded in obtaining equally remarkable phenomena when the metal was negative, either by augmenting the force of the current, or by using compound solutions.

He took, for example, a mixture of acetate of copper and nitrate of potash, and upon a negative plate of silver he formed a series of concentric rings, the centre of which

retained the metallic brilliancy. The two next circles were green, then came rings of white, red, and green, then a zone of copper of a fine red colour. This zone was surrounded with a blue circle, marked with radiating lines, like a graduated circumference, its rays extending even to the circle of copper; then came a second copper zone, wider than the first, but equally brilliant, surrounded with a circle of beautiful green, which terminated the figure. The same appearances were obtained on gold and platina.¹

The following interesting process has been given by Becquerel's querel for producing tints as vivid as those of Nobili's thin process. plates, by covering metallic surfaces with a deposit of per-

oxide of lead. The object, a b (Fig. 59) to be coloured is attached to the positive pole of a Bunsen's battery of 2 or 3 pair, and plunged into the vessel AB, containing peroxide of lead dissolved in potash. The platina wire C, attached to the negative pole, is then moved about in the liquid at a certain distance from the plate. The peroxide is then deposited, presenting the successive colours of thin films. If the wire is near the middle of the plate, a series of vivid coloured rings, like those of Nobili, varying in thickness from the centre to their circumference, is formed. But if the wire is held a little higher above the plate, the coloured film is uniform, the tints being those of the transmitted tints in Newton's scale. The plate must then be well washed in water, to remove the potash. This is the process by which the hands and the heads of screws in watches are coloured.²

The production of electro-chemical appearances has been carefully studied by M. A. Becquerel, who thought that it Becquerel. was subject to a law analogous to that which governs the colour of thin plates. MM. Dubois Remond and Beetz Dubois Remond have shown that the phenomenon was more complex, and depended on several circumstances connected with the laws of colour.

Mr Grove has discovered electric appearances of different kinds produced by the action of Ruhmkorff's induction currents upon gases. On the plate of a good air-pump he placed a silvered copper plate, with its polished silver surface uppermost (Fig. 60). A receiver, with a rod passing through a collar of leather, is placed above the plate, and to the lower end of this rod is fixed a steel needle, which can be brought to any required distance from the silvered surface. Having placed in the receiver an atmosphere of air rarefied to about $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ or $\backslash frac\{2\}\{3\}$ths of an inch of mercury, and mixed with hydrogen and a little vapour of water, he placed the needle $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch from the silvered surface, and saw formed upon the plate, when it was positive, a dark circular stain of oxide, presenting in succession yellow, orange, and blue tints. On reversing the poles, and making the plate negative, the spot was wholly removed. In rarefied air without any hydrogen, oxidation took place whether the plates were positive or negative, but most rapidly when positive. In pure rarefied hydrogen and nitrogen, no oxidation took place. With needles of copper, silver, and platinum, and plates of bismuth, tin, zinc, or iron, similar effects were obtained.

In order to study the formation of the spots, Mr Grove used an atmosphere, rarefied as before, consisting of one volume of oxygen with four of hydrogen. The plate was made positive, and the point of the steel needle was brought opposite different portions of the silver plate at distances of $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th, $\backslash frac\{2\}\{3\}$th, $\backslash frac\{3\}\{4\}$th, $\backslash frac\{4\}\{5\}$th, and $\backslash frac\{5\}\{6\}$th of an inch; and the appearances thus obtained are shown at Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

¹ See Ann. de Chiss. &c. tome xiv. p. 210, and Becquerel's Traité, &c. tome III. pp. 274-287.

² See Delarive's Electricity, vol. III. p. 562.

Voltaic Electricity. The colour of the central spot was yellow-green in the centre, surrounded by a blue-green, then a clear ring of polished silver not oxidised, then another ring crimson, with

negative pole acted upon the eye, he saw the same objects brighter and larger. But according to Purkinje, the only difference is, that the positive pole excites less light than the negative pole. Purkinje also observed, that by the application of the positive pole to the eye, a yellow light was excited, while the negative pole excited a violet light, brighter and more abundant than the yellow. He also observed that the luminosity was excited principally at the base of the optic nerve, and at the foramen centrale of the retina. With the positive pole the base of the nerve exhibited a bright violet light, and the dark foramen was surrounded with a double rhomboidal limb of yellow light; but with the negative pole the base of the nerve was black, and the foramen was violet, and surrounded with a violet rhomboidal limb, at a little distance from the foramen. He noticed also, that when the voltaic circuit was broken, the preceding colours passed into their opposite or complimentary ones.

If a living leech, or an earthworm, is placed upon a crown piece laid upon a piece of zinc of a larger size, it experiences no uneasiness while it touches the silver only; but when it stretches itself and touches the zinc, it instantly draws itself back as if it had received a shock.

The influence of voltaic electricity upon the muscles of animals after death is very remarkable. This subject has been recently investigated by Marianini, Nobili, Pelletier, and Becquerel; but our limits will not permit us to give even the shortest account of their labours.² We must content ourselves with mentioning a few interesting facts. If the negative and positive wires are inserted in the ears of an ox or sheep taken from the body of the animal recently killed, strong convulsive motions will be excited in the muscles of the face whenever the circle is completed, provided the battery have an hundred pair of plates. Life seems to be restored, and the animal to be under great suffering. The eyes open and shut, and roll in their sockets; the pupils dilate; the nostrils expand and vibrate; and the jaws move as in mastication. If a horse is subjected to powerful galvanic action, when recently killed, the struggles of its limbs can scarcely be restrained by several persons.

Similar experiments were made in Glasgow in 1811, by Dr Ure's Dr Ure, on the body of a criminal after execution. He used a battery of 270 pair of four-inch plates. When the spinal marrow and sciatic nerve were made the points of communication with the positive and negative poles, the whole body shuddered as with cold. The left side was most powerfully convulsed; and upon moving one of the rods from the hip to the heel, the knee being previously bent, the leg was thrown out with such violence as nearly to knock over one of the assistants. By acting upon the nerves connected with the respiratory system, a laborious breathing instantly commenced, and the chest heaved and sunk. When a communication was made between the superorbital nerves and the heels, "most extraordinary grimaces," says Dr Ure, "were exhibited, by running the wire in my hand over the edges of the plates in the last trough, from the 220th to the 278th pair. Thus, fifty shocks, each greater than the preceding ones, were given in two seconds. Every muscle of his countenance was simultaneously thrown into fearful action. Rage, horror, despair, and anguish, and ghastly smiles, united their hideous expression in the murderer's face, surpassing far the wildest representations of a Fuseli or a Kean. At this period several of the spectators were obliged to leave the room from terror or sickness, and one gentleman fainted." The last experiment made by Dr Ure consisted in transmitting the voltaic current from the spinal marrow to the

a slightly orange tint on its inner side, and deep purple on its outer. As shown in No. 6, a small polished speck was seen opposite the point of the needle. When a plate was negative, a similar speck was seen, as in No. 7, surrounded with a dark and badly defined aureola. The silver plate being positive, No. 8 was obtained from a platinum wire enclosed in a glass tube, and No. 9 from a steel needle. No. 10 was produced by a copper wire $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch above the plate, and an adjoining platinum wire $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th above the copper wire.

Mr Grove regards these phenomena as analogous to those of interference in light, as Nobili had previously supposed.¹

SECT. X.—On the Physiological Effects of Voltaic Electricity.

Effects of galvanism on living animals. The effect of voltaic electricity on animal bodies is analogous to that of ordinary electricity, a subject which we have already treated at considerable length.²

The galvanic shock is not conveyed through the skin of the human hand in the same manner as the electric shock. This arises from its low intensity, in consequence of which it can be transmitted only through good conductors. The best way is to grasp, with both hands wet, two silver spoons, or two metallic belts, and by means of them form a connection between the poles of the battery.

A luminous spark is produced by voltaic electricity, when the eye forms part of the circuit. This may be done by placing a piece of silver between the gums and the upper lip, and inserting a silver probe into the nostrils. If a piece of zinc is then laid upon the tongue, and the two metals brought into contact, the flash will be seen. This and other affections of the eye were observed by Ritter, who declares that when the positive pole was inserted in his eye he saw objects darker and less, and when the

¹ Phil. Trans. 1852, or Phil. Mag. Dec. 1852.

² See Becquerel's Traité, &c. tome iv. p. 211-255, for full and interesting details on this branch of the subject.

² See ELECTRICITY.

Voltaic Electricity. ulnar nerve. "The fingers now moved nimbly, like those of a violin performer. An assistant who tried to close the fist, found the hand to open forcibly in spite of his efforts. When one rod was applied to a slight incision on the top of the fore finger, the fist being previously clenched, the fingers extended instantly; and from the convulsive agitation of the arm, he seemed to point to the different spectators, some of whom thought he had come to life." In these experiments the positive wire communicated with the nerve, and the negative with the muscles.

After having made a great many experiments upon the bodies of criminals that had been executed, Wassall, Julio, Rossi, and Fowler, believed that they had found a specific action of electricity upon the heart, and upon other muscles, such as those of the stomach and intestines.

Becquerel. M. Becquerel mentions the effect produced by a pile of 100 plates upon the head of a person who had been guillotined. The two poles of the pile communicated with the two ears, wetted with salt water. The muscles of the face experienced the strongest contractions, and the action of the eyelids was extremely distinct. Aldini obtained analogous, though feeble effects, in experiments on a body after a natural death. Experiments of a similar kind have been made upon insects and fishes. M. Zanotti of Bologna, having killed a cigala (grasshopper), he placed it in contact with the two extremities of the pile, when it immediately moved, and emitted the sounds which are peculiar to it. M. Becquerel mentions also, that a fish whose head had been cut off half an hour before, struck the table with its tail when excited by the voltaic current, and its whole body leaped about the table.

Action of electricity upon plants. The action of electricity upon vegetable bodies is extremely limited. Slight movements have been observed in the leaves and branches of the Mimosa sensitiva or the Mimosa pudica, when the electric current has been made to pass through them. A more remarkable effect has been observed by M. Dutrochet and Becquerel, in the globules which circulate between every two knots of the Chora. Electricity produces a torpor in the motion of these globules, without disorganising the plant, as it recovers its natural power after a repose of greater or less duration. The circulation of the globules is accelerated by heat.

Therapeutic effects of electricity. The therapeutic effects of electricity have been treated of at great length by Delarive,¹ in a long chapter deserving the special study of medical practitioners. He describes the various beautiful instruments which have been used by physiologists, especially the inductive apparatuses of Breton and Duchenne (first suggested by Masson), and the voltaic chain of Pulvermacher; and discusses the various cases of paralysis and other nervous affections in which they have been employed, and of other maladies in which they have been ineffective, or successful, or injurious.

In the treatment of tumors, whether lymphatic or glandular, and of aneurysms, electricity has been found useful; and when metals have been absorbed into the system, either as remedies, or when introduced in the arts and trades which require them to be employed, a current of voltaic electricity passed through the body has been found to carry along with it the metallic particles, and deposit them in the metal of the bath.²

SECT. XI.—On the Application of Voltaic Electricity to the Arts.

Application of voltaic electricity to the arts. There is perhaps no science, not even excepting chemistry, which has made such donations to the fine and useful arts as voltaic electricity. Those which depend on galvan-

ism are the art of protecting the copper sheathing of ships; Voltaic the galvano-plastic art, or that of multiplying works of art Electricity. in metals, electro-metallurgy, and the reduction of the metals, the electrotype, or the art of copying and multiplying engravings, and galvanic etchings.

1. Protection of Copper Sheathing. This art, invented Protection by Sir H. Davy, has been already sufficiently described in our article DAVY.

2. The Art of Multiplying Works of Art in Metal. This Voltaic, beautiful art seems to have been invented about the same or electrotype by Mr Jacobi of St Petersburg, and Mr Spenser of Liverpool. Mr Jacobi, who announced his discovery in October 1831, called it the galvano-plastic process, and Mr Spenser had, previous to the knowledge of Mr Jacobi's labours, executed medals in copper, which were called electrotypes or volatotypes. Both Mr Jacobi and Mr Spenser had confined their invention to the deposition of copper upon metallic bodies; but Mr Murray announced in January 1840, that non-conducting substances, such as plaster of Paris, wax, wood, &c., might have metallic copper thrown down upon them by previously metallising their surface with black lead.

The single cell apparatus for taking casts of coins and Method of medals is shown in fig. 61, which consists of an outer vessel copying medals.

A, containing a saturated solution of sulphate of copper, and some undissolved crystals of the sulphate suspended near the upper surface of the fluid. The medal m, to be copied, is suspended in the copper solution. The inner vessel B, made of porous earthenware, contains the usual dilute acid, which acts upon a rod or plate of zinc Z, the upper end of which is connected with the bent wire w which suspends the medal m. When the medal has remained two or three hours in the copper solution, the copper will be found to have deposited itself on every part of its surface, so as to afford a perfect intaglio or hollow impression of the medal. If the surface of the medal or any part of it is greased, no copper will be deposited on the greased part. The obverse and reverse of the coin or medal being thus copied, and the two retained at their proper distance, the next step is to place them at m in the copper solution, and we obtain in the same manner a raised impression from the intaglio one, accurately resembling the original.

Instead of obtaining the intaglio cast directly in copper, it is thought best to take it either in fusible or type metal, or in some non-conducting substance, such as sealing wax, bees' wax, rosin, plaster of Paris, stearine, &c. When non-conducting substances are employed, those which are absorbent, such as plaster of Paris, must be prevented from absorbing the fluid, by rubbing the surface of the intaglio mould with tallow or spermaceti; they are then to be metallised by covering their surface with black lead.

When we wish to form gold and silver medals, a gold or silver surface is necessary, as non-conducting bodies are not well fitted for this branch of the art. For a gold medal, a strong nitro-muriatic solution of gold should be used, and the medal to be copied should, according to Mr Smee, be connected with the zinc end of a series of from four to twelve batteries. A very fine platinum wire, according to the same author, immersed in the solution to a trifling depth, must be united to the platinised silver of the battery, and the deposit of gold will then take place. For silver medals a solution of the nitrate, sulphate, or acetate, may be used. The solution should be weak at first, and then gradually increased. If we do not wish to have the whole medal of solid gold and silver, a thin layer

Fig. 61.

¹ Electricity, vol. iii. p. 585-704.

² Poey and Vergnes, Bull. Univers. tome xxviii. p. 208.

Voltaic Electricity may be deposited, and the rest completed by copper. On the same principles medals of platinum or palladium may be formed from their solution. Great care must be taken to prevent bubbles of air from forming on the mould.

The difficulty of coining large medals gives great value to this art. Mr Smeé mentions a very fine medal of Boulton, about four inches in diameter, which required no less than 300 blows to ensure a perfect impression. Seals, plaster casts, and various other works of art, may be copied in copper and other metals by the above process. When the galvano-plastic process is applied to the production of pieces of sculpture of great size, the co-operation of a founder is required to fabricate particular parts and unite the pieces. To do this the Duke of Leuchtenburg founded a great establishment at St Petersburg for reproducing colossal statues. Chief-d'œuvres, busts, full-length statues, and even statues 10 feet high, and numerous bas-reliefs, have been in this way produced, and many of them shown in the Universal Exhibition in Paris of 1855; but in consequence of the great expense incurred, the establishment has been abandoned.

Duke of Leuchtenburg's galvano-plastic establishment. Multiplication of engraved copper plates. 3. On the Multiplication of Engraved Copper Plates. The difficulty of procuring good and pure copper plate for engraving has been entirely removed by this new art. A prepared copper plate with a good surface may have copper deposited upon it, so that the deposited plate has the same perfect surface, with the additional advantage of consisting of pure copper. It is advisable, however, to hammer and prepare with charcoal the deposited plate to give it elasticity, &c., and such plates have been found superior to all others for the purposes of engraving.

The method of copying engraved copper plates, of the most delicate execution is shown in fig. 62, where D is a vessel, a gallipot for example, about 8 inches high and 6 inches internal diameter. The dotted line, EE, is a copper cylinder $6\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inches high and 5 inches in diameter, and O O O is a porous cylinder, which may be made of brown paper when a quick action is wanted; but, in general, a thin unglazed gallipot is preferable. A cylinder of zinc, Z Z, as large as possible, is then placed within the porous cylinder without touching it, nearly at the distance of 1-8th of an inch. A perforated cover, SS, of earthenware, is made to rest either on the cylinder EE, or upon a rim in the gallipot about an inch from its top. The object of it is to hold crystals of sulphate of copper for keeping the solution in a state of saturation. Wires X, Y, are soldered to the cylinders of copper and zinc, and these are connected with the wires in the other vessel by a binding screw s, fig. 63, used by Mr Spencer, uniting the two wires M, N. The square cell, A B, contains the engraved plate, b, to be copied, and connected by the wire, b X, with the zinc cylinder of the battery; and c b is the plate to be oxydised and to be attached to the zinc cylinder of the battery. The secondary cell, or precipitating trough, which may be made of earthenware, wood, or glass, is filled with a saturated solution of sulphate of copper. In this way a reverse copy of the plate itself is obtained in relief, and from this copy, or relief, another copy

in intaglio is to be taken by the same method. It is considered preferable, however, to take a perfect mould from the engraved plate in white wax or plaster of Paris. When this mould is rubbed with black lead, an electrotype plate is then deposited upon it. In like manner steel plates may be copied by first taking moulds from them in lead, wax, or plaster. It is a curious fact, that the deposited plate is always superior to the engraved plate. Mr Palmer has succeeded in thus copying the works of our finest engravers. Mr Matheot of the United States prevents adherence between the plates by a solution of 1 grain of iodine in 20,000 grains of concentrated alcohol. He has thus succeeded in electrotyping seven times in succession, both in relief and in intaglio, the same engraved plate, without the least difference being perceptible between the original and the last electrotype of it. In this way he has reproduced the large charts of the coasts of the United States.

Wood-cuts may be reproduced on copper by metallising the surface of the wood by plumbage.

The Duke of Leuchtenburg has obtained fine results in the reproduction of designs, by substituting for the printing ink a mixture of resin of Damara, red oxide of iron, and essence of turpentine, with which an impression is taken off on thin paper. While fresh the impression is applied upon a polished plate of copper or silver, so that the design touches the plate. When dried, the paper is removed by water, and a plate or intaglio is reproduced from it by the electrotype.

M. Robell of Munich's process of galvanography depends on a similar principle. The drawing to be reproduced on copper is washed upon a plate of silvered copper with a colour not very thick, or the Damara mixture mentioned above. Upon this drawing a layer of copper is deposited by the galvanoplasty process, and a fine intaglio is obtained.

Messrs Grove and Gassiot have succeeded in transforming daguerreotype plates into engraved plates. These plates are so delicate that only a small number of impressions can be taken from them. The plate to be etched is to be made a positive electrode in an electrolyte of two volumes of hydrochloric acid and one of distilled water.

Mr Paul Pretsch's photo-galvanographic process, or engraving by light and electricity, is one of great ingenuity and beauty, as may be seen in his interesting work entitled Photographic Art Treasures, of which several numbers have been published.

For further information on this subject, see Spencer's Instructions for the Multiplication of Works of Art in Metals, &c., in Griffin's Miscellany, Glasgow, 1840; Jacobi's Die Galvanoplastik, Petersburg, 1840; Annales de Chimie et de Physique, September 1840, tome lxxv. p. 24; Smeé's Elements of Electro-Metallurgy, Lond. 1841; and Voltaic Delarive's Electricity, vol. iii. part vii. chap. 2.

4. Voltaic Etching. In this new art, which is fully described by Mr Smeé, the copper plate having the design drawn upon the etching-ground, as in ordinary etching, and having its back and sides coated with wax, is connected, by means of a wire, with the silver plate of one of Mr Smeé's batteries. "A piece of copper," says Mr Smeé, "of the same size as the plate, should then be connected to the zinc, when both the copper plate and the piece of zinc are to be placed in a solution of sulphate of copper. Immediately copper will be reduced from the solution on the negative plate, and copper from the etching plate will be dissolved to keep up the strength of the solution. Whatever is favourable to the increase of electricity causes the copper to be more quickly acted upon, and whatever diminishes the galvanic current retards the solution of the

Voltaic metal; so that the nearer the etching-plate, forming the Electricity. positive pole, and the piece of copper, forming the negative, are approximated, the more rapid will be the action. In the same way the intensity of the battery also affects the rate at which the plate is bitten in. The negative plate of copper, however, should not exceed in size the copper plate on which the etching is executed, or else there is a risk of some of the lines being more deeply bitten in; and, in like manner, if any considerable part of the plate has a great deficiency of lines, compared with other parts, that part must be stopped out rather before the other, to ensure a uniformity of depth, or else the negative copper opposite the part must be so bent, that it is at a greater distance. The advantages of galvanism for etching are, the absence of poisonous nitrous fumes, which are evolved in the ordinary process; the greater uniformity of action which takes place than when acids are used, and that the rapidity of biting may be regulated to the greatest nicety. The lines may be made of any depth, and are sharper and clearer than when acid is used; and, lastly, no bubbles are evolved, which the engraver well knows are apt to tear up the ground, or to cause unequal action.¹

Voltaic gilding and silver plating. 5. Voltaic Gilding and Silver Plating. We owe the art of gilding upon silver and brass, by electricity, to M. Delarive, who was led to it by witnessing the dreadful effects which are produced at Geneva by the use of mercury in gilding. Gold, platinum, palladium, silver, copper, and carbon, when their surfaces are smooth and chemically clean, and freed from adhering air, may be gilt by means of a feeble voltaic current which deposits the gold from a weak nitro-muriatic solution of that metal, and in this way a coating of any thickness can be obtained. By a similar process, metals may be platinated or palladinated by using the nitro-muriatic solution of these metals. Metals may, in like manner, be covered with nickel by means of its nitrate.

By similar means fruit, vegetables, leaves, seeds, may be coated with copper; and crystallised copper may be deposited on wicker-work, baskets, &c., after they are black-leaded, or upon articles of earthenware. Mr Smeé has succeeded in coating copper with almost every other metal; but for an account of Delarive's and Mr Smeé's processes we must refer to the Bibliothèque Universelle, April 1840; the Comptes Rendus, &c., 1840, No. 14, p. 578; to Delarive's Electricity, vol. iii., p. 545; and to the work of Mr Smeé, already quoted, book iii.

Recent improvements by Elkington. Since Delarive published his results in 1840, the art of electro-plating has become one of the most important of the industrial arts, through the great improvements introduced by Elkington in England, and Rudz in France. Mr Elkington began with gilding in the moist way without electricity; but on December 8, 1840, he took out a patent for his second process, in which he plunged the object to be gilt (as the negative electrode of a constant battery in which the positive was platinum) in a solution containing 482½ grains of gold converted into oxide, 7723 grains of common cyanide of potassium, and 244 cubic inches of water, all of which are boiled together for half an hour. The gilding goes on more rapidly when this liquid is boiling than when cold. The thickness of the gold film increases with the time of immersion.

De Ruolz. M. De Ruolz, in the same year, December 19, took out his patent for gilding by the battery, a process which has great advantages. He found that the best and cheapest solutions of gold were the double chloride of gold and sodium dissolved in soda, the chloride of gold, 1 part dissolved in 2 parts of yellow ferrocyanide of potassium, with 100 of water, and the sulphuret of gold dissolved in

the neutral sulphate. The second of these is most used in practice, and the third is the best on bronze and brass.

In electroplating, the best solution is 1 grain of dry cyanide of silver dissolved in 100 grains of water, containing 10 grains of the yellow ferrocyanide of potassium.

In platinating, 0.015 grains of platinum will cover 0.08 square inches with a film 0.0000004 inch thick.

M. Ruolz has succeeded in coppering, leading, and tinning various vessels in common use.

Mr Elkington has, to a considerable extent, used inductive currents in his manufactory.

Among the chemical applications of electricity, one of Chemical the most interesting is that of employing its dynamic force application in separating elements, which will not yield to the ordinary chemical forces. By its agency the following metals have been discovered.—sodium, potassium, calcium, barium, magnesium, lithium, chromium, and aluminium.

M. Becquerel, in his treatise on electricity, has described Becquerel. most valuable processes for the electro-chemical treatment of the ores of silver, lead, and copper.

One of the greatest gifts of voltaic electricity to the arts Light and is in its production of a safe and brilliant light, and of a heat heat.

capable of very singular applications. The light produced, when the voltaic current passes between two electrodes of charcoal, rivals almost the sun in brilliancy; and on this account it has been proposed to use it in lighthouses especially during fogs, when all ordinary lights would be invisible. The first idea of an apparatus for fixing this light and making it useful was constructed in 1848 by our countrymen, Messrs Staite and Petrie. M. Foucault, about the same time, had constructed one in France, and soon afterwards, MM. Breton Brothers, M. Duboscq, M. De Bretti, and M. Liais, invented different ingenious varieties of apparatus for the same purpose, for the description of which we must refer to M. Delarive's work. The electric light is disagreeably bluish, but it may be rendered reddish by using carbon electrodes of alderwood.

The electric light has been employed in optical experiments, also for illuminating submarine work, and for making explorations at the bottom of the sea, or raising submerged property, the wires being in these last cases insulated with gutta-percha. M. Boussingault and Delarive proposed to use it in the illumination of coal mines, by conveying the current of a fixed pile by long conductors to carbon electrodes in a hermetically sealed globe. To avoid the difficulty of sealing the globe hermetically, Mr Grove proposes to use a helix of platinum wire made incandescent by the voltaic current, and placed over water in the interior of a glass tube. With fifty pairs of nitric acid and platinum, and eight square inches of surface, he calculated that he could produce a light, the intensity of which would be to that of a wax taper as 1444 to 1, and which would cost only four shillings per hour. The expense of lighting 800 workmen at the Napoleon docks at Rome, is only 38.08 francs per night, or 4½ centimes per man.²

In the production of heat, voltaic electricity is no less Heat. valuable. It raises the temperature of the solids and fluids through which it passes. It deflagrates and fuses metals, and it boils water. A platina wire, incandescent during the continuous passage of the current, is used as an illuminated wire in astronomical instruments; and in the same state it has been used as a cautery in surgical operations, when a uniform and continuous heat was required.³ The late Dr Hare suggested the use of an incandescent wire in the explosion of mines; but we owe to Mr Roberts the process of realising the idea, by the use of cartridges placed where the explosion is to take place.

M. Ruhmkorff successfully substituted the inductive

¹ Smeé's Electro-Metalurgy, pp. 138, 139.

² Comptes Rendus, 1854, tome xxxviii. p. 813.

³ Id. xxxix. p. 1165.

Electro-magnetism.—spark for the incandescent wire in igniting the gunpowder, an economical process, as in place of 15 or 20, it requires only 1 pair of Bunsen's battery to produce the spark. M. Verdu,¹ a Spanish officer, has greatly improved the process, and has exploded six small mines in the same circuit, at the distance of 320 yards from the apparatus, a process made more secure and certain by M. Dumonel,² who has used it in the excavations at the port of Cherbourg.

Electro-magnetism. Various insulated facts and experiments, observed and made by Franklin, Van Marum, Cavallo, Ritter, Mojon, and Maschmann, led to the belief that electricity produced magnetical effects; and this opinion was strengthened by the magnetical changes which had been repeatedly observed in compass needles struck by lightning. It was not, however, till 1820, that electro-magnetism was discovered by

Oersted. Professor H. C. Oersted of Copenhagen. In the month of July of that year, after obtaining several feeble magnetical effects from wires conducting the galvanic current, he at last succeeded, by using larger wires, in establishing the fundamental law, that the magnetical effect of the electrical current has a circular motion round the current.

Ampere. Soon after this important discovery was made, M. Ampere established a second fundamental law of electro-magnetism, that the two conducting wires from the poles of the battery, when conveniently suspended, attract each other when they transmit electrical currents moving in the same direction, and repel each other when the currents which they transmit have opposite directions.

Arago. On the 25th September 1820, M. Arago communicated to the French Institute the important discovery, that the electrical current possesses, in a very high degree, the power of developing magnetism in iron and steel. Sir H. Davy communicated a similar fact to Dr Wollaston on the 12th November 1820, and Dr Seebeck laid before the Royal Academy of Berlin a series of experiments on the same subject. M. Savary of Paris has more recently found that steel needles, placed at different, but small distances from a wire conveying an electrical discharge, are not all magnetised in the same direction.

Thermo-electricity. The most important addition to voltaic electricity, since the discovery of Oersted, is that of Dr Seebeck, who found that electro-magnetic currents can be produced by heat alone, a subject which will be treated in a separate chapter on Thermo-electricity.

Fundamental experiments in electro-magnetism. When we join the two poles of a galvanic battery by a metallic wire, this wire is called the conductor, or the uniting wire, and the galvanic circle is said to be closed when this wire is single and unbroken, or when it consists of two wires in contact. When these two wires are not in contact, the circuit is said to be open, in which case the wires have no action upon magnetic needles.

Let AB (fig. 64), be the conducting wire of a closed galvanic circuit, along which electricity is carried from A to B, A being the positive end, and B the negative end; then, if a delicate magnetic needle is suspended near AB, its direction is changed in the following manner:—

1. When the needle is above the wire, its north pole will go from the observer as at d, in the upper part of the ellipse, cdef, fig. 64.

2. When the needle is below the wire, its north pole will approach the observer, as at f, in the lower part of the ellipse.

3. When the needle is in the same horizontal plane as the wire, and stands between the observer and the wire, its north pole is elevated, as at c.

4. When the needle is in the same plane, but on the other side of the conductor, its north end is depressed, as at e. Hence, it appears, that the direction of the magnetic current is edef, when the electrical current is in the direction AB.

If the uniting wire is bent into parallel directions, as in fig. 65, the two exterior surfaces of the branches AC, BD, will exercise similar actions on a needle NS, and so will the two interior surfaces, the actions at e and f being similar, and also those at g and h.

From these experiments, Professor Oersted concluded that the magnetical action of the electric current describes revolving circles round the conductor, and hence he gave the name magnetism, of revolving magnetism to this magnetical action.

This action of revolving magnetism was at first opposed by Professor Schweigger, on the ground that if it were true, a magnet might be made to revolve round the uniting wire. Dr Wollaston drew the same conclusion, but for the purpose of producing such a revolution. Before he had effected his purpose, however, Dr Faraday went a step farther, and found experimentally not only that a magnet could be made to revolve round the uniting wire, but that a moveable uniting wire might be made to revolve round a magnet. An apparatus for exhibiting these remarkable properties is shown in fig. 66.

A wire a, from the voltaic battery, passes into the glass vessel M, through a hole in its bottom, so as to communicate with mercury contained in the vessel. The lower end of a small magnet b, of the form of a cylinder, is fixed by a thread to the bottom of the vessel, so that it floats almost vertically in the mercury. A wire Ced, communicating with the other end of the battery, by means of the brass pillar C, dips with its lower end d into the mercury in M; and as soon as the voltaic current is established in the direction of the arrows, or a d e C, the pole b of the magnet will revolve round the fixed conductor d e C.

The revolution of the conductor round a magnet is exhibited in the same figure, where N is a glass vessel containing mercury, and having a small cylindrical magnet F fixed to its bottom, and projecting a little above the surface of the mercury. The wire d, being attached by a hook to the horizontal arm C, will commence its revolutions round, as soon as the voltaic current passes in the direction of the arrows, or x F d C. If we make the current pass in the direction a d e C F x, from the zinc to the platinum end of the battery, both the above revolutions will go on simultaneously. When the current was made to pass in the opposite direction, the direction of the rotation was likewise changed.

The rotation of a magnet round its own axis was first Ampere effected by M. Ampere. The magnet was made to float vertically in mercury, by a platina weight at its lower end. When the electrical current descended through the upper half which stood above the mercury, it was carried off by

Electro-Magnetism. the mercury without entering the other half of the magnet. Had a positive current entered the other half, after passing

Ampere's rotatory magnet. through the first half, it would have tended to make the upper pole revolve from left to right, and the under pole from right to left, and these contrary forces would have balanced each other; but when it is prevented from entering the lower half, the positive current produces a rotation in the magnet from left to right. Mr Watkins¹ has constructed the apparatus in fig. 67, for showing this experiment in a better way. A flat bar magnet M is supported vertically by the bent wire WSW, fixed to the stand AB. The lower end of the magnet, which is pointed, rests in an agate cup C, while its upper end is a pivot, turning in a hole in the screw S. At the centre and lower end of the magnet are circular grooves containing mercury, into which dip small bent and pointed wires, fixed to the magnet, as seen in the figure. When the voltaic circuit is completed in the usual manner, the current passes only through the lower half of the magnet, and being a moveable part of the circuit, it turns round on its two pivots with a velocity depending on the strength of the magnet, the power of the battery employed, and the freedom from friction at the pivots. A current from another battery might be passed from the top of the magnet to its centre, which, by producing a rotation in the same direction, would increase the velocity of revolution.

Watkins' rotatory magnet. Upon the same principles, a conductor may be made to revolve round its axis. An instrument for showing this was invented by Professor Barlow, and has been improved by Mr Watkins, by applying it to the horse-shoe magnet.²

Revolving conductor. The rotation of liquid conductors may likewise, as Sir H. Davy has shown, be produced by the pole of a magnet. If mercury is placed in a shallow dish between the two poles of a battery, a magnet placed either above or below the mercury will cause the mercury to revolve round the points from which the currents issue. The rotation of the flame produced by the passage of a powerful voltaic charge between two charcoal points, arises from the same cause. Professor Daniell gives the following pleasing method of showing this effect. He makes a powerful horse-shoe magnet part of the conducting wire of a constant battery of a moderate number of cells; the flame which may then be drawn from one of its poles will revolve in one direction, while that from the other will revolve in the opposite direction.³

Daniell's method. Soon after the discovery of electro-magnetism, M. Ampere made the important discovery that the conductors attract each other when they are transmitting electrical currents having the same direction, but repel each other when the currents have opposite directions. This may be proved experimentally by the apparatus in fig. 68, invented by M. Ampere. It consists of a bent wire, ABCDEFGH, the parts of which at B and G are kept insulated by a non-conducting substance m, to which they are tied. The extremities A, H, with steel points dip into iron cups of mercury, K, M, at the ends of the brass wires, JK, LM, fixed into a piece of wood NO. When the electric current enters at J, passes along the conductor ABCDE, &c., and issues at L, the conductor is put in motion by means of a magnet. When the south pole of a magnet is directed against the side BCD, it will repel the conductor, but will attract it when directed against the opposite side.

Mutual action of electric currents. The conductor in the above apparatus may also be moved by the earth's magnetism. For this purpose the plane,

CDEF, must stand perpendicularly to the magnetic meridian. When the current enters at A, the vertical part FE

will be placed towards the west, but if the current enters at H, the part FE will be placed towards the east.

Ampere's electro-dynamic cylinder is shown in fig. 69, where M is the extremity of a wire, with a steel point resting in a cup of mercury. The wire, after descending to A, passes horizontally through a glass tube AB, and is then wrapped round it to form a helix or spiral, returning to A. It then passes to C, where it is wrapped in a similar manner round the glass tube CD; and when it reaches the end D, it returns through the tube to C, when it descends vertically with its steel point into another mercury cup N. This instrument is a complete imitation of a magnetic cylinder, and, while an electric current is passing through it, it possesses all the properties of a magnet, and may in every case be substituted for one.

Another electro-dynamic cylinder, invented by Ampere, Marsh's and improved by Mr Marsh, is shown in fig. 70. It consists of a coil or helix of wire AB, the ends of which return along its axis to its middle point C, and are there fixed to the wires n, p, of a small voltaic battery MN, which consists of a single plate of zinc z, surrounded by a

plate of copper e, e, and floating in a basin of diluted acid, in which it can freely move. This spiral ACB will place itself in the magnetic meridian, when acted upon by the magnetism of the earth, and will likewise yield to the action of another magnet placed near either of its poles.

Various forms have been given to these electro-dynamic cylinders. In some the coils all lie in one plane, as in fig. 71, where one face of the coil has north, and the other south polarity, the magnetic poles being as it were situated in the centre of each disc.

When the helix is constructed, as in fig. 72, its power is so great that a small steel bar SN, placed within it, and supported perpendicularly, will, as soon as the connection is made with the voltaic battery, by means of the mercury cups P, p, start up, and place itself in the air, where, like Mahomet's coffin,

Electro-Magnetism. it will remain suspended without any visible cause, and in opposition to the power of gravitation.

Ampere's revolving battery. We owe also to M. Ampere the very interesting apparatus of a small voltaic battery made to revolve round a magnet. This is shown in fig. 73, where

ABCD, abcd exhibits a section of two cylinders of copper soldered to a copper bottom, so as to hold a fluid. This double cylindrical vessel is suspended by a bent wire aFb (having a cavity at F), upon the north pole N of a vertical magnet NS. A light cylinder of zinc zz is also so suspended by a bent wire zEz, and a steel pivot at E upon the same pole N of the magnet. The cylinder zz can therefore revolve upon this pivot. When the cylinder ABDdbac

CA is filled with dilute acid, so as to constitute a small battery, the cylinder zz will revolve from left to right when N is the north end or south pole, and from right to left when N is the south end or north pole. Owing to the attraction of the fluid, the cylinder of zinc is often drawn to one side, and prevented from moving; but this may be avoided by making the space Ac sufficiently wide. Mr Watkins has ingeniously applied this contrivance to the poles of a horse-shoe magnet, as in fig. 74. It consists of a horse-shoe magnet AB, fixed to a stand SS. Above each pole is suspended a double cylindrical copper vessel, with a bent metallic wire fixed to the top of the inner cylinder, and a vertical wire pointed at each extremity, fixed in the middle of the bent wire. The lower ends of the vertical wires of each cylinder rest in the holes at each pole of the magnet. Within the above double copper vessels are placed two hollow cylinders of zinc, having similar bent wires with holes in the lower side of each, in which holes the upper ends of the vertical wires are inserted. When the copper cylinder is filled with dilute acid, the voltaic action begins, all the four cylinders revolving round their respective axes. The copper cylinders turn slowly and heavily, from their weight, in opposite directions to one another, and the zinc cylinders, with great velocity, in opposite directions to the copper ones. Very delicate suspensions are necessary to ensure the rotation of the copper cylinders.

Delarive's apparatus. A very simple apparatus for showing the magnetic state of a single coil, is shown in fig. 75, where Z and C repre-

round it, is bent into a ring, one end of which is soldered to the zinc, and the other to the copper plate. An electric current now passes in the direction of the arrow, and the ring W becomes a flat magnet, having its poles in the centre of its two surfaces, the one being north and the other south. This floating magnet will, when acted upon by a real magnet, exhibit the usual magnetic attractions and repulsions. Mr Marsh has improved this apparatus by doubling the copper plate, as in fig. 76, and converting it into a vessel for holding the dilute acid. The plates are then placed in a glass cylinder which may float in water.

A very beautiful apparatus for exhibiting helical rotations has been constructed by Mr Watkins, and is shown in fig. 77. A horse-shoe magnet, with its poles uppermost, is fixed upon a wooden box S. Two helices of copper, having slender bars across their summit, with needle or steel points in their centre, move in conical holes drilled in the poles of the magnet, with small platina cups to hold a small portion of mercury. The lower extremities of each helix terminate in steel points, which dip into the mercury in wooden cups below, screwed to the legs of the magnet. A wire likewise goes from the lower end of each cistern, and being bent upwards, terminates in a small cup with mercury. The brass rod R, fixed to the stand, carries a forked piece MN, the ends of which are two points which dip in the mercury in the platina cups. On the top of the coil, another mercury cup is placed on the fork MN; and when the voltaic current is made to pass through the apparatus, the helical coils will revolve rapidly in opposite directions, the directions changing with the disposition of the wires which connect them with the voltaic battery.

We have already mentioned the fine discovery of M. Arago of the power of electrical currents to develop magnetism in iron and steel. M. Arago found that the uniting wire of a powerful voltaic battery attracts iron filings often with such force as to form a coating round the wire ten or twelve times thicker than itself. This attraction, as he found, did not originate in any magnetism previously possessed by the iron filings, which he ascertained would not adhere to iron; and that it was not a case of common electrical attraction, was evident from the fact that copper and brass filings were not attracted by the uniting wire. He likewise found, that the iron filings began to rise before they came in contact with the uniting wire, and hence he drew the conclusion, that the electric current converted each small piece of iron into a temporary magnet. In following out this view, the French philosopher converted large pieces of iron into temporary magnets, and also small steel needles into permanent ones. Sir H. Davy and Dr Seebeck obtained analogous results without knowing what had been previously done in France. M. Savary of Paris obtained also some very important results relative to the magnetic action of the uniting wires at different distances but we have already given a brief account of them, as well as of the experiments of Professor Erman, in our article ELECTRICITY.

sent the elements of a small galvanic battery of one zinc and one copper plate attached to a cork which floats on dilute acid. Each plate is half an inch wide, and two inches long. A piece of copper wire W, with silk thread wrapped

The next step in the progress of discovery, was that of making magnets of extraordinary power by means of a voltaic battery. This seems to have been first accomplished by Professor Moll of Utrecht, and Professor Henry of Princetown College, who was able to lift thousands of pounds' weight by his apparatus, but as we have already given a full account of the construction of such magnets, and of the experiments of M. Quetelet of Brussels, and Mr Watkins of London, in our article MAGNETISM, we must refer our readers to that part of the work.

Since these important discoveries, however, were made, an electro-magnet of extraordinary power has been constructed by the Rev. N. J. Callan,¹ Professor of Natural Philosophy at Maynooth. It has the form of a horse-shoe, and is thirteen feet long, two and a half inches in diameter, and weighs fifteen stone. The distance between its poles is seven inches, and a copper wire one-sixth of an inch in diameter, is wrapped round the bar from one pole to the other. The total length of this thick wire is 490 feet, but it is divided into seven parts, each 70 feet in length. A copper wire, about the fortieth of an inch in diameter, is soldered to one of the thick wires, about a foot from one of its extremities, and is wrapped round the horse-shoe bar in the same direction as the thick wire, and in one continuous helix. When the opposite ends of the seven thick wires are connected with the opposite poles of a voltaic battery, the horse-shoe bar is converted into a magnet of extraordinary power, and when the battery communication is broken, an electric current of singular intensity is established in the long coil of small wire. The armature or keeper of Mr Callan's magnet was a horse-shoe bar of iron 20 inches long, two and a half in diameter, and weighing 28 lb. Its poles were seven inches apart, and the apex of the arch seven inches high. Such was the power of the magnet that it was found impossible to separate the keeper from it by any force acting in a direction perpendicular to the touching surfaces. The calorimotor, consisting of a single pair of plates, with 18 square feet of copper, and 16 of zinc, was found by Mr Noad more effective in exciting the magnetism than a Wollaston battery of 100 double pairs highly excited. When the connection was broken between the battery and the charcoal points fixed to the thick wires, the succession of sparks formed a continued blaze of brilliant light, and when a succession of sparks was sent rapidly through a large fowl, they produced instant death.

The idea of applying the powerful agency thus developed in a bar of iron, as a mechanical power, naturally suggested itself; but there is reason to believe that Mr Thomas Davenport of Brandon, in the county of Rutland, and state of Vermont, was the first person who thought of applying it in producing rotatory motion. This uneducated individual, by trade a blacksmith, having, in 1833, accidentally seen one of Professor Henry's electro-magnets, purchased it with the idea of employing it as a mechanical power. In July 1834, he is said to have constructed a voltaic engine; and on the 16th March 1837, he took to New Haven two machines; one a rotatory machine, composed of revolving electro-magnets, with fixed permanent magnets; and the other, a rotatory machine composed entirely of electro-magnets in its fixed and revolving members, which being wholly made of soft iron, may be magnetised in an instant by a very small battery.² Professor Henry,³ however, had previously, and so early as 1831, produced a reciprocating motion by magnetic attraction and repulsion, aided by electro-magnetic action.

In fig. 78, AB is an electro-magnet of soft iron, about seven inches long, and moveable on an axis at the centre S. Its two extremities, when placed in a horizontal line,

are about one inch from the north poles of the upright Electro-magnets C and D. G and F are two large tumblers con-

taining dilute acid, in each of which is immersed a plate of zinc, surrounded with copper. l, m, s, t, are four brass thimbles soldered to the zinc and copper of the batteries, and filled with mercury.

The electro-magnet AB is wound with three strands of copper bell wire, each about twenty-five feet long. The similar ends of these are twisted together, so as to form two stiff wires, which project beyond the extremity B, and dip into the thimbles s, t.

To the wires q, r, two other wires are soldered, so as to project in an opposite direction, and dip into the thimbles l, m. The wires of the electro-magnet have thus, as it were, four projecting ends; and by inspecting the figure it will be seen that the extremity o, which dips into the cup attached to the copper of the battery in G, corresponds to the extremity r connecting with the zinc F.

When the batteries are in action, if the end B is depressed until q, r dips into the cups s, t, AB instantly becomes a powerful magnet, having its north pole at B. This of course is repelled by the north pole D, while at the same time it is attracted by C. The position is consequently changed, and o, p, comes in contact with the mercury in l, m. As soon as the communication is formed, the poles are reversed, and the position again changed. If the tumblers be filled with strong dilute acid, the motion is at first very rapid and powerful, but it soon almost entirely ceases. By partially filling the tumblers with weak acid, and occasionally adding a small quantity of fresh acid, a uniform motion, at the rate of seventy-five vibrations in a minute, has been kept up for more than an hour. With a large battery, and very weak acid, the motion might be continued for an indefinite length of time.

The motion here described is entirely distinct from that produced by the electro-magnetic combination of wires and magnets. It results directly from the mechanical action of ordinary magnetism—galvanism being only introduced for the purpose of changing the poles.

These contrivances have been followed by several others Rev. Mr of great ingenuity. The Rev. J. W. M'Gauley exhibited M'Gauley's a working model of an electro-magnetic machine to the electro-magnetic British Association at Dublin in 1835; and in the sixth report of the Association he mentions his having "in his possession a machine of not inconsiderable power." Mr Sturgeon of Woolwich mentions that he had a galvanic machine in use on his premises, for pumping water, and for other mechanical purposes. Mr Jacobi has some time ago employed electro-magnetic machinery for impelling a boat on the Neva at St Petersburg; and Mr Davidson of Aberdeen has made a similar application to a turning-lathe.

A series of beautiful instruments, of great practical value, Schwegger's electro-magnetic multiplier have been invented for increasing minute voltaic effects, by electro-magnetic action. The first of these was constructed by Professor Schweigger of Halle, immediately after the discovery of electro-magnetism. It is exhibited

¹ See Sturgeon's Annals of Chemistry, &c., July 1837.

² Silliman's American Journal of Science, April 1837, vol. xxxii. No. 65, p. 217.

³ Ibid., July 1831, vol. xx. p. 340.

in fig. 79, where a magnetic needle SN, is placed or suspended within several bendings of the uniting wires ABCDE. Now, as each of the branches of this wire acts upon one of the poles of the needle in the same direction, the effect will be quadrupled; and hence the direction of the needle becomes a means of measuring any minute voltaic effects produced in the uniting wires. The power of multiplication does not, as Dr Seebeck proved in 1820, increase with the number of windings in the uniting wire, as the resistance to transmission increases with the length of the wire, thus diminishing the conducting power of the wire. Professor Oersted improved the multiplier,¹ by adding a bent magnet, as shown at JK, fig. 80, which can be placed so as to repel the nearest end of the needle, or index, or to attract it. In the position in the figure the first of these effects is produced; but by turning the angle of the bent magnet towards the needle the second effect is produced. By causing the pillar which carries this magnet to approach to or recede from the needle, the directive power of the needle may be made scarcely sensible. In this state the instrument will show the difference in the voltaic effects produced by two pieces of metal, which differ only by $\backslash frac\{1\}\{25\}$th of alloy when a powerful liquid is used. Professor Cumming, we believe, first suggested the idea of neutralising the directive force of the needle, arising from the earth's magnetism, which he did by placing a magnetised needle immediately beneath the moveable or index needle.²

M. Nobili has improved this instrument by using two needles, as in fig. 80; but he fixed the neutralising needle S'N', to the moveable one NS, placing the one above the other, with their poles reversed. The two needles are fixed in a piece of straw GH, and suspended by a silk fibre at G. The needles were twenty-two lines long, three wide, and one-fourth thick, and GH was five lines. The wire was a copper one, one-fifth of a line in diameter, and thirty feet long, and covered with silk. It made seventy-two revolutions round the frame.

M. Lebailiff has extended this principle by using four needles in place of two, each pair being exactly the same as in fig. 80, the one being brought near the upper surface

instrument the increased weight of the needles may compensate any additional sensibility possessed by the approximation of the needles to the sides of the coil. The instrument is shown in fig. 81, where ab, ab are the four needles, mnop the square bobbin, around which the wires are coiled, one or two feet of their length at each end being left free, as at gi, gf, that the electric current may enter at the one and issue from the other. Instead of a single wire 300 feet long, M. Lebailiff employs five parallel ones, each end of which is stripped of the silk, and united by strong pressure into a bundle. The electric current thus divided into five parts, flows in five channels, which, according to M. Pouillet, transmit a proportionally larger quantity of electricity, while the diminished intensity produced by transmission through a great length of wire is avoided.²

A torsion galvanometer, invented by Dr Ritchie,⁴ is shown in fig. 82. Having covered a fine copper wire with a thin coat of sealing wax, he rolls it about a heated cylinder, an inch or two in diameter, ten, twenty, or any number of times. The opposite sides of the circular coil are then pressed together till they become parallel, and about 1 or $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inches long. The coil W is then fixed on a proper sole, and the ends of the wires connected with two metallic mercury cups C, C. A graduated disc of paper is then placed horizontally on the upper half of the coil, having a black line drawn through its centre, parallel with the middle line of the coil. A small magnet SN, made of a common sewing needle, is then fixed to the lower end of a fine glass thread, while the upper end is securely fixed with sealing wax, in the centre of a moveable index I, as in the torsion balance. This is enclosed in a glass tube T, fitted into a disc of thick plate glass, which forms the upper surface of the box. When a voltaic current passes through the coil W, the needle SN is deflected. The glass thread is then twisted by turning the index I till the needle is brought back to its former position, and the number of degrees of torsion will be an accurate measure of the quantity of electricity, whose deflective power over the needle is exactly balanced by the torsion of the glass fibre.

A very ingenious galvanoscope, for ascertaining merely the Roget's existence and direction of an electric current, is described galvanoscope by Dr Roget in the Library of Useful Knowledge.⁵ It is shown in fig. 83, where M is the needle, T the suspending

of the coil, and the other near the under surface. In this

fibre, placed between four vertical spiral coils, the centres of which are brought very near the poles of the needle. The

¹ For a perspective drawing on a large scale of this instrument, see Edinburgh Encyclopedia, art. "Thermo-Electricity," plate 522, fig. 11.

² Trans. Cambridge Phil. Soc. vol. i. p. 279.

³ Pouillet's Éléments de Phys. Exp. liv. v. chap. i. sect. 412, and Library of Useful Knowledge, art. "Electro-Magnetism," p. 44.

⁴ Phil. Trans. 1830, p. 218.

⁵ Art. "Electro-Magnetism," part ii. chap. viii. p. 44, fig. 82.

Electro-magnetism. same voltaic current is made to circulate through all the four spirals, which have their turns such as to produce repulsion of the contiguous pole on the one side, and attraction of the same pole on the other side. The wire of the four spiral discs proceeds from the mercury cup P, and terminates in another cup N. In this admirable instrument, the current is brought as near as possible to the needle, so that its action is very powerful. The whole force of the four discs is quadruple that of a single one, as they all concur in giving the needle a deviation in the same direction.

Gold-leaf galvanoscope. Gold-leaf has been employed in the formation of the gold-leaf galvanoscope, which is similar in construction to Bennett's gold-leaf electrometer. The strength of the current is indicated by the curvature of the strip of gold-leaf fh (fig. 85), which is held loosely by forceps at f and h, each forceps terminating in a mercury cup, the one, P, being above, and the other, N, below. The gold-leaf is enclosed in a glass case, the middle of which is placed equidistant between the poles M, m, of a horse-shoe magnet. When the electric current passes through the gold-leaf, the leaf is bent, or attracted and repelled laterally by the poles of the magnet, according as the current ascends or descends, the broad surface of the leaf becoming convex towards the magnet in the one case, and concave in the other. As the degree of curvature is easily ascertained, Dr Roget considers this instrument as affording "the most delicate test possible of the existence and direction of a weak voltaic current."¹

Ampere's electripeter. We shall now conclude this part of the article with an account of a very ingenious contrivance of Ampere's for quickly altering the direction of the electric current in voltaic batteries. Two grooves RR, fig. 86, are made in the table TT, some lines in depth, and also four similar cavities v v', t t', communicating diagonally by means of the plates of copper ll, mm, which are kept separate at their crossing by a non-conducting substance. Mercury is then placed in the grooves and cavities, after they have been varnished with mastic. If the positive wire of a battery is immersed in the groove R, and the negative one in the groove R', the current will not flow until a metallic communication is made between each of the grooves, and one of the cavities. To do this, b, b' are two plates, fig. 87, for transmitting the current; the plate b may become positive or negative, according as the cavity R communicates with t, and R' with t', or when R communicates with v, and R' with v'. In the first case, the current follows the direction Rt, bb', t'R', in the second it goes from R to v, then traverses the plate ll, and afterwards goes from b' into ll, and from v' into R. Now, these communications may be easily made or interrupted, by means of a

wooden rod BB', which turns round its axis in the holes o, o'. Four metallic arcs bb', dd', are fitted to this rod, so that by merely raising or depressing it, the communications are changed. When b and b' are depressed, R and v communicate through rb, and R and v' by r'b', and when d and d' are depressed, R and t and R' and t' communicate by means of the corresponding arcs.²

Mr Edward Clarke has improved this instrument, and, we believe, given it the name of electripeter. It is shown in fig. 88, where a, a', d, d' are four mercury cups, communicating with wires beneath the stand SS'. Large mercury cups A, A', B, B', are similarly constructed for conveying the current from the

battery to a machine to be set in motion. The wires CC' are moveable about a horizontal axis. Suppose them to be in the position in the figure, and that the current is passing from A to B, and back again, from any apparatus from B' to A, then, by merely pressing the other ends of the wires CC' into their respective cups a, a', the direction of the current will be immediately changed, and it will pass from A beneath the stand to B', and back from B to A. By retaining the wires horizontally, which keeps their ends out of the cups, the passage of the current will be stopped.³

On the Applications of Electro-Magnetism.

Our limits will not permit us to do more than enumerate the principal applications of Electro-magnetism.

The power of electric currents to develop magnetism in soft iron is so great as to have led several philosophers to apply it to the production of a continuous movement, either rotary or reciprocating. M. Jacobi of St Petersburg was the first who constructed such a machine, and it was for a long time used in impelling a boat on the Neva. Since that time many other electro-motors, as such machines are called, have been constructed; the most important of these are by Loiseau, Froment, Larmanjeat, Page, and Dumonel. The late Mr Sturgeon pumped water with an electro-magnet; Mr Davidson of Aberdeen drove a turning-lathe by the same power; and in 1848 we sailed at the rate of a mile in the hour in a boat thus impelled and constructed by Mr Dillwyn of Swansea.

M. Jacobi, as we have stated, has been led by Dr Faraday's discovery of magnetic electricity to abandon his expectation of obtaining anything like a valuable power from electro-magnetism; and Messrs Joule and Scoresby have come to the same conclusion. It appears from their calculations that a grain of coal consumed by a steam-engine in Cornwall will raise 143 lb. 1 foot, whilst a grain of zinc consumed in a voltaic battery can raise theoretically only 80 lb. But the price of an hundredweight of coal is less than 9 pence, whilst that of the same quantity of zinc is more than 216 pence, so that, under the most favourable conditions, the power obtained from electro-magnetism must cost twenty-five times as much as that from steam.

The application of electro-magnetism to the art of weaving, made by M. Bonelli, as exhibited this year at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, is doubtless a great invention, and though at present inferior to the Jacquard system, yet progressive improvement in the apparatus may give the electric loom a superiority over the one now employed.

¹ Cumming's Manual of Electro-dynamics, p. 178.
² Nodd's Lectures, p. 319.

³ Becquerel, Traité d'Electricité, &c., tome III. pp. 9, 10.

Magneto-Electricity. M. Froment's electro-sorting apparatus is another fine and useful application of electro-magnetism. Iron ore, reduced and pulverised, is spread continuously on one of the extremities of a revolving cloth drawn under a vertical wheel, having on its circumference twenty-eight electro-magnets. The lowest electro-magnet only receives the current, and being in the magnetic state, attracts the iron particles from the ore. After passing on a little farther, it is deprived of its magnetism, and drops the adhering iron particles upon an inclined plane. The following electro-magnet does the same, and thus the pure iron is separated from its accompanying dross.

To railway breaks. Electro-magnetic attraction has been employed by M. Nickles and M. Achard has applied it to the construction of an electric break, a current being made to pass along a train, and all the breaks are put in action by it as soon as the engine-driver desires to stop the train.

In astronomy, electro-magnetism has been most ingeniously employed. Messrs Bond of the United States Observatory at Cambridge have employed it in recording astronomical observations instantaneously on paper many hundred miles off, if required; and Mr Airy has applied it to various important purposes in the observatory at Greenwich, but particularly to the determination of the difference of longitude between distant stations.

To clocks. To Messrs Wheatstone, Bain, and Steinhill, who were occupied almost simultaneously with the subject, we owe the beautiful contrivance of multiplying by electro-magnetism the indications of a single clock, that is by transporting to any number of counting apparatuses, or sham-clocks, the indications of a type or master clock. By this means all the clocks in a city or in an establishment may be made to move in perfect coincidence, a process finely effected by M. Froment.

As a maintaining power of clocks. As a substitute for weights or springs in the maintaining power of clocks, electro-magnetism was first employed by Mr Bain of Edinburgh. By the action of two real magnets upon a helix traversed by a current, he maintained a pendulum in motion, an invention which was greatly improved by Froment.

Chronoscopes. Chronoscopes, electro-magnetic instruments for measuring short intervals of time, were first proposed by Mr Wheatstone, and improved by Pouillet, Breguet, Siemens, and Henry. By these instruments the velocity of projectiles has been measured. By M. Pouillet's chronoscope, which differs in principle from the others, he has determined the time that a ball takes to come out of a cannon or musket, which is between the $\backslash frac\{1\}\{450\}$th and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{400\}$th of a second.

Electric seismograph. M. Raimien has constructed an electro-magnetic apparatus for registering the shocks and undulator motions of an earthquake, for which he has given the name of the Electro-magnetic Seismograph.

For an account of the application of electro-magnetism to telegraphy, see TELEGRAPH.

PART III.—MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY.

Magneto-electricity. In the preceding chapter we have detailed the leading phenomena produced by electric currents, or electricity in motion, for no magnetic effects are produced by accumulated electricity. We now come to give an account of the new science of magneto-electricity, which we owe to Dr Faraday. Although certain effects of the induction¹ of electrical currents had been discovered, it had always appeared to Dr Faraday unlikely that these could be the only effects which induction by currents could produce; and

whatever theory of the phenomena might be adopted, it still seemed to him "very extraordinary, that as every electric current was accompanied by a corresponding intensity of magnetic action, at right angles to the current, good conductors of electricity, when placed within the sphere of this action, should not have any current induced through them, or some sensible effect produced equivalent in force to such a current. With these views, and under the expectation of obtaining electricity from ordinary magnetism, he investigated experimentally the inductive effect of electrical currents."

If the uniting wire of a voltaic battery is placed parallel to the wire connecting the two ends of a delicate galvanometer, the most powerful current along the uniting wire will produce no deviation in the needle. But if the current along the uniting wire is stopped, by breaking the circuit, a momentary deviation of the needle takes place, as if a wire passed in the same direction as that of the voltaic current. When the needle has become stationary, a similar impulse is given to it in the opposite direction, by restoring the circuit. Dr Faraday found that similar effects took place when the current along the uniting wire being uninterrupted, the uniting wire was made to approach or to recede suddenly from the wire of the galvanometer, the approximation inducing a current in the direction contrary to the inducing current in the uniting wire, and the division inducing a current in the same direction as the inducing current.² To this inductive action of the voltaic current Dr Faraday has given the name of volta-electric induction.

As the preceding effects were clearly produced by a transverse action of the current, in the first case at the instant when the current was annihilated or generated, and in the second by the mechanical motion of the uniting wire, Dr Faraday expected to obtain similar results, by the sudden induction and cessation of the same magnetic force, either by means of a voltaic current, or by that of a common magnet. By various experimental arrangements Dr Faraday verified these anticipations; but in order to connect his experiments on volta-electric induction with the present ones, he constructed a combination of helices upon a hollow cylinder of pasteboard. The wire was 1-20th of an inch in diameter, and the different spires were prevented from bending by a thin interposed twine. Each helix was covered with calico. Eight lengths of copper wire were used, or nearly 220 feet of wire. "Four of these helices were connected end to end, and then with the galvanometer; the other intervening four were also connected end to end, and the battery of 100 pairs discharged through them. In this form, the effect on the galvanometer was hardly sensible, though magnets could be made by the induced current. But when a soft iron cylinder, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$ths of an inch thick, and 12 inches long, was introduced into the pasteboard tube, surrounded by the helices, then the induced current affected the galvanometer powerfully. It possessed also the power of making magnets with more energy apparently than when an iron cylinder was used. When the iron cylinder was replaced by an equal cylinder of copper, no effect beyond that of the helices alone was produced." "Similar effects," continues Dr Faraday, "were produced with ordinary magnets. Thus, the hollow helix just described had all its elementary helices connected with the galvanometer by two copper wires each 5 feet long; the soft iron cylinder was introduced into its axis; a couple of bar magnets, each 24 inches long, were arranged, with their opposite poles at one end in contact, so as to resemble a horse-shoe magnet, and then contact made between the other poles and the ends of the iron cylinder,

¹ By induction Dr Faraday intends to express the power of electrical currents "to induce any particular state upon matter in their immediate neighbourhood otherwise indifferent." Experimental Researches, p. 1.

² Ib. p. 5.

Magneto-Electricity. so as to convert it for the time into a magnet; by breaking the magnetic contacts, or reversing them, the magnetism of the iron cylinder could be destroyed or reversed at pleasure. Upon making magnetic contact, the needle was deflected; continuing the contact, the needle became indifferent, and resumed its first position; on breaking the contact it was again deflected, but in the opposite direction to the first effect, and then it again became indifferent. When the magnetic contacts were reversed, the deflections were reversed. When the magnetic contact was made, the deflection was such as to indicate an induced current of electricity in the opposite direction to that fitted to form a magnet, having the same polarity as that really produced by contact with the bar magnet.¹

But in order to show that it was by the approximation of the magnets that the momentary induced current was excited, Dr Faraday substituted for the soft iron cylinder a cylindrical magnet 8½ inches long, and ¾ths of an inch in diameter. He introduced one end of this magnet into the axis of the helix, and then, the galvanometer needle being stationary, the magnet was suddenly thrust in, the needle was then instantly deflected in the same direction as if the magnet had been formed by any of the two preceding processes. "Being left in, the needle resumed its first position, and then the magnet being withdrawn, the needle was deflected in the opposite direction. These effects were not great, but by introducing and withdrawing the magnet, so that the impulse each time should be added to those previously communicated to the needle, the latter could be made to vibrate through an arc of 180° or more."²

Law of magneto-electric induction. Although the law which governs the evolution of electricity by magneto-electric induction is very simple, yet Dr Faraday has found it rather difficult to express it, except in reference to diagrams. We shall therefore give it in his own words. "If, in fig. 89, PN represent a horizontal wire passing by a marked magnetic pole, so that the direction of its motions shall coincide with the curved line proceeding from below upwards; or if its motion parallel to itself be in a line tangential to the curved line, but in the general direction of the arrows; or if it pass the pole in other directions, but so as to cut the magnetic curves² in the same general direction, or on the same side as they would be cut by the wire if moving along the dotted curved line; then the current of electricity in the wire is from P to M. If it be carried in the reverse direction, the electric current will be from N to P. Or if the wire be in the vertical position, as at P'N', and it be carried in similar directions, coinciding with the dotted horizontal curve, so far as to cut the magnetic curves on the same side with it, the current will be from P' to N'. If the wire be considered a tangent to the curved surface of the cylindrical magnet, and it be carried round that surface into any other position, or if the magnet itself be revolved on its axis, so as to bring any part opposite to the tangential wire; still, if afterwards the wire be moved in the directions indicated, the current of electricity will be from P to N; or if it be moved in the opposite direction, from N to P; so that as regards the motions of the wire past the pole, they may be reduced to two, directly opposite to each other, one of which produces a current from P to N, and the other from N to P.

"The same holds true of the unmarked pole of the magnet, except that if it be substituted for the one in the

figure, then, as the wires are moved in the direction of the arrows, the current of electricity would be from N to P, and when they move in the reverse direction, from P to N.

"Hence the current of electricity which is excited in metal when moving in the neighbourhood of a magnet, depends for its direction altogether upon the relation of the metal to the resultant of magnetic action, or to the magnetic curves, and may be expressed in a popular way, thus: Let AB (fig. 90) represent a cylinder magnet, A being the

marked pole, and B the unmarked pole; let PN be a silver knife-blade resting across the magnet, with its edge upward, and with its marked or notched side towards the pole A; then in whatever direction or position this knife be moved edge foremost, either about the marked or the unmarked pole, the current of electricity produced will be from P to N, provided the intersected curves proceeding from A abut upon the notched surface of the knife, and those from B upon the unnotched side. Or, if the knife be moved with its back foremost, the current will be from N to P in every possible position and direction, provided the intersected curves abut on the same surfaces as before. A little model is easily constructed, by using a cylinder of wood for a magnet, a flat piece for the blade, and a piece of thread connecting one end of the cylinder with the other, and passing through a hole in the blade, for the magnetic curves; this readily gives the result of any possible direction.

"When the wire under induction is passing by an electro-magnetic pole, as for instance, one end of a copper helix traversed by the electric current in the direction of the current in the approaching wire is the same with that of the current in the parts or sides of the spirals nearest to it, and in the receding wire the reverse of that in the parts nearest to it.

"All these results show that the power of inducing electric currents is circumferentially exerted by a magnetic resultant, or axis of power, just as circumferential magnetism is dependent on, and is exhibited by, an electric current."³

The great discovery of magneto-electricity by Dr Faraday led M. Jacobi of St Petersburg to abandon the theoretical view which induced him to apply electro-magnetism as a locomotive power. His machines, the electro-motive force of which he had supposed to be independent of time, produced but very restricted effects, in place of being the source of a force infinitely great. The principal cause of this limitation was the formation of magneto-electric counter-currents generated by the very motion of the machine. In his conversations with Bessel, M. Jacobi had often told him Jacobi that if magneto-electricity obliged him to abandon his theoretical views, M. Bessel would be compelled one day to take an account of it in his theory of the pendulum, and perhaps even in his calculations on the planetary bodies. M. Jacobi has no scruple in placing the discovery of magneto-electricity on a level in point of importance with that of gravita-

¹ Experimental Researches, p. 11, or Phil. Trans. 1832.

² By magnetic curves, I mean the lines of magnetic forces, however modified by the juxtaposition of poles, which would be depleted by iron filings, or those to which a very small magnetic needle would form a tangent.

³ Experimental Researches, pp. 32, 34.

Magneto-electricity. On the authority of facts partly known and partly not yet confirmed by experiment, M. Jacobi has been led to the following conclusion,—that in every system of material bodies, every change of position gives birth to forces, the direction of which is always inverse to that of their motion, that is, they are repulsions when the bodies approach one another, and attractions if they recede from one another. This conclusion, he adds, takes into account only the existence of these forces and their direction. It neither expresses their intensity, nor the manner in which they depend on space and time, or on the masses and their constitution.¹

Experiments with compound magnet of Dr G. Knight, belonging to the Royal Dr Knight's Society, and consisting of 450 bar magnets, each 16 inches long. The electrical effects which it exhibited were very striking. When a soft iron cylinder, 18 inches long, was put through the compound hollow helix, with its ends arranged as two general terminations, and these connected with the galvanometer; then, when the iron cylinder was brought in contact with the two poles of the magnet, so powerful a rush of electricity took place, that the needle whirled round many times in succession. When Dr Faraday brought the helix alone near to or between the poles, the needle was thrown 80°, 90°, or more, from its natural position.

Dr Faraday failed in obtaining evidence of chemical decomposition by the magnet, or any sensation on the tongue, or any effect on a frog, but he afterwards, by an armed loadstone of Professor Daniell's, lifting 30 pounds, not only thought that he perceived a sensation on the tongue, and a flash before the eyes, but was able to produce a very powerful convulsion in the limbs of a frog, every time that magnetic contact was made, the convulsive effect increasing with the suddenness with which the contact was broken and restored.

Electric shock from a magnet. Dr Faraday, as we have now seen, was the first person who obtained, in November 1831, the electric spark from a magnet. The spark which he obtained was got from a soft iron magnet, made by the influence of a voltaic current. Professor Nobili² and Antinori afterwards obtained the electric spark from a soft iron magnet, made by the influence of a common artificial magnet; and Professor Forbes (March 1832) obtained the electric spark from a soft iron magnet, made by the influence of a natural loadstone.³ The method adopted by Professor Forbes is shown in fig. 91, where A is

a suspended natural magnet. A cylindrical keeper or armature, a b, has a helix, c, coiled round it, about 7½ inches long, and consisting of about 150 feet of copper wire, about 1-20th of an inch in diameter; the helix consisted of four layers in thickness, separated by insulating partitions of cloth and sealing-wax. The branch b d e of the wire terminates in the bottom of the glass tube h, containing mercury, with a pure surface. The other branch f of the helix communicates by means of the mercury cup i, with the iron wire g, the fine point of which is brought by the hand into contact

with the surface of the mercury in h, and is separated from the instant the keeper a b is brought into contact with the poles of the magnet; the spark is then produced in the tube h.⁴

That the action of magneto-electricity is the converse of Rotatory electro-magnetism, is well shown in the rotatory magneto-electric apparatus in fig. 92. It consists of a copper disc C, revolv-

ing round a horizontal axis by means of the handle H. A powerful horse-shoe magnet, AB, is so placed that the edge of the disc C can revolve between its poles n s. Two conducting wires w, w', are so placed, that two of their extremities terminate in the mercury cups of a galvanometer g, while the other end of the first is kept in perfect metallic contact with the axis, and the other end of the second is in contact with the circumference of the disc at the point between the poles n and s of the magnet. When this disc revolves from right to left, an electric current proceeding from the centre to the circumference of the disc, is generated in the direction of the curves, and the needle of the galvanometer is deflected. If the disc revolve from left to right, the electric current moves in the opposite direction.

For further information on the subject of magneto-electric induction, see Mr Faraday's papers in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tome li. p. 404, &c.; Lond. and Ed. Phil. Mag. October and November 1840, vol. xvii., p. 281, 356; and Dr Golding Bird's Elements of Natural Philosophy, Lond. 1839, p. 243.

Description of Magneto-Electric Apparatus.

After Dr Faraday's great discovery of magneto-electric M. Pixii's or volta-electric induction, various machines were constructed for experimental investigation and exhibition. M. Hippolyte Pixii of Paris exhibited to the Academy of Sciences, in 1832, his magneto-electric machine. A powerful magnet was made to revolve with great rapidity before its keeper or armature, which had round it a coil of copper wire about 3000 feet long. By this means sparks and severe shocks were obtained, a feeble charge was accumulated in a Leyden phial, the gold leaves of an electrometer were made to diverge, and water was decomposed.

A very ingenious and complete machine was exhibited Mr Saxton's machine.

by Mr Saxton, at the meeting of the British Association in June 1833, as shown in fig. 93. The magnet A is a horse-shoe one of great power, composed of many steel plates, closely applied to each other, or it may be a soft iron electro-magnet of the same shape. A keeper, CD, of the purest soft iron, has each of its ends bent into a right angle, and is so mounted that the surfaces of their

¹ See Comptes Rendus, &c., tome I, pp. 936, 964, May 21 and 23, 1860.

² Ann. de Chim. December 1831, and Antologia, November 1831.

³ See Phil. Mag. June 1832, p. 401, and Lond. and Ed. Phil. Mag. November 1834.

⁴ Edin. Trans. vol. xii.

Magneto-ends are exactly opposite and close to the poles of the Electricity-magnet. In this position the keeper CD may be made to revolve round the horizontal axis EF, by means of the wheels C and E, and band GE fixed to the upright pillar B. Round each end, C, D, of the keeper, are coiled two series of copper wires, covered with silk, so as to form compound helices. The ends of these wires, which have the same direction, are joined together, and are likewise connected with a circular disc, revolving with the keeper in a cup of mercury, with which in every position of the disc it is in metallic communication. The other ends of the wires are joined, and passing together without metallic contact through the spindle EF, terminate in a slip of copper, with two opposite points, as at i, at right angles to the axis. These points alternately dip into and rise above the mercury in another cup, K, which may be connected with the first by means of a copper wire. Now, whenever the ends of the keeper are opposite the poles of the magnet, the keeper becomes a temporary magnet, and it ceases to be so when the line joining them is at right angles to the line joining the two poles. The instantaneous generation and extinction of the magnetic force take an opposite direction in the keeper according as its opposite ends are close to the same poles, and induce corresponding opposite electric currents in the copper wire, provided the circuit is complete by the immersion of the points at i. The arrangement of the points at i is such, that they just rise from the mercury as the ends of the keeper come opposite to the poles of the magnet; and hence the sudden breach of the circuit makes the current pass in the form of a brilliant spark. If a fine platinum wire, instead of the dipping points, forms the communication between the revolving disc and spindle, it may be kept at a red heat, its light slightly intermitting from the alternation of the currents. If a communication is formed between the two cups of mercury by two copper cylinders grasped in the hands, a strange sort of shock will be experienced, which is sometimes almost intolerable. Chemical decompositions are also readily effected, and the amount will be proportioned to the quantity of electricity in circulation.

Mr E. M. Clarke's magneto-electric machine. The magneto-electric machine has been greatly improved by Mr E. M. Clarke, magneto-electric instrument maker, London. It is represented in fig. 94, where A is the battery of bent bar magnets resting against the vertical board B, and by means of a bar of brass C, with a bolt and screw-wheel, the magnets can be drawn firmly to the board B, or taken from it. One of the keepers or armatures D is screwed into a brass mandril between the poles of the magnets, and it is made to revolve by the multiplying wheel E. This armature has two coils of fine copper wire 1500 yards long wrapped round its cylinders, the beginning of each coil being soldered to the armature D, from which also projects a brass stem carrying the break-piece H, which can be fastened in any required position by a binding screw; a hollow brass cylinder K, to which the ends of the coils are soldered, being insulated by means of a piece of hard wood attached to the brass stem. An iron wire spring O passes at one end against the cylinder K, and is kept in contact with it

by a screw in a brass strap M in the wooden block L. A Magneto-square brass pillar P fits also a square opening in the other Electricity. brass strap N on the other side of the block L. A metallic spring Q rubs gently upon the break-piece H, and is retained in perfect metallic contact with it by a screw in the pillar P, the two straps of brass M, N, are connected by a piece of copper wire T, and in this state the parts D, H, Q, P, N are in connection with the commencement of each coil, and the parts K, O, M with the termination of each coil. The perfect metallic contact thus obtained by the spring and break, enables Mr Clarke to dispense entirely with the use of mercury, which is at all times a troublesome accompaniment of machinery.

But the great superiority of Mr Clarke's machine arises from his employing two different armatures, and thus being enabled to produce the separate effects of quantity and intensity to the full extent of the power of his battery. Having, in November 1834, tried the effects of coils of wire of different thicknesses, he found that the thick copper bell wire gave brilliant sparks, but no perceptible shock, while very fine wire gave powerful shocks, but very feeble sparks. By means of the intensity armature, which is that shown in fig. 94, the various experiments made with a number of separate galvanic plates may be performed, while the intense agony produced by its shocks is intolerable: It can, at the same time, electricity the most nervous person without occasioning the least uneasiness. It decomposes water and the neutral salts. It deflects the gold leaves of the electroscope, charges the Leyden jar; and by an arrangement of wires from the mercury-box to the battery, the electricity is made visible, passing from the magnetic battery to the armature, and sparks and brilliant scintillations of steel can be obtained.

The quantity armature differs greatly from the intensity Quantity one, as shown in fig. 95, which exhibits the method of pro-armature.

ducing the spark. The weight of the iron in the cylinders is much greater than in the intensity one, the copper wire is much thicker, and its length is only forty yards. By this armature all the experiments can be made which are usually performed by a single pair of voltaic plates of large surfaces, or by a calorimeter; but it will not do for any of the intensity experiments. It produces such large and brilliant sparks, that a person can read small print from the light it produces. It ignites gunpowder and platina wire, without enclosing the wire in a hermetically sealed glass case. It deflagrates gold and silver leaf, and produces brilliant scintillations from a small steel file. It produces also rotatory motions in delicately suspended wire frames round the poles of a vertical horse-shoe magnet,¹ and all the other effects of voltaic electricity.

Several very curious and unexpected results were ob-

¹ See Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag. Oct. 1836, No. 64, vol. ix. p. 262, and Nodd's Lectures, p. 344.

tained on a magneto-electric machine of very large dimensions, which Mr Clarke exhibited at the meeting of the Electrical Society. The battery was separated into two parts connected by the armatures, the quantity armature being at one side, and the intensity one at the other. The quantity armature had a short coil of thick insulated copper wire, and the intensity one had 15,375 yards of fine copper wire. The intensity arrangement, to the surprise of everybody, gave no decomposition, but gave an excruciating and even dangerous shock, while the quantity arrangement gave one cubic inch of the mixed gases in four minutes. Considering these unexpected results as owing to a compound action produced by the rotation of the two armatures, he arranged the magnets as in his first machines, the only difference being in the size of the new machine. The battery was composed of ten cut and polished steel bars, each four feet long, the whole weighing 156 lbs. According to Mr Noad,¹ the novel results of the experiments were the great amount of gas given by the quantity armature, viz. one cubic inch in one and a half minute, and the trifling decomposing effect of the intensity armature. The intensity spark was long, straggling, and noiseless, like a spark at the striking-distance from the prime conductor of an electrical machine, while the quantity spark had the usual stellar form, but was attended with a loud snapping noise, as in the discharge of a Leyden jar. Both the sparks, however, were equally luminous. By employing a secondary coil, Mr Noad has given shocks with the quantity armature, almost as powerful as those obtained from the intensity one, by using the form of coil first proposed by Professor Callan of Maynooth, and the contact-breaker of Dr Golding Bird.

The following arrangement (fig. 96) for producing powerful shocks, and strong chemical action by secondary currents, was first given by Dr Golding Bird. Upon a reel, with a hollow axis three inches long, wound about 60 feet of copper wire, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th inch in diameter, covered with cotton thread. The two ends of the wire are connected with $p,\; p\text{'}$, by means of binding screws. Over this primary coil is wound a second insulated copper wire, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th inch in diameter, and about 1500 feet long, and the two ends of this wire are connected with $s,\; s\text{'}$, by means of binding screws. From the law of electro-dynamic induction, it is evident

that, if the ends $p,\; p\text{'}$ of the thick coil are connected with a single pair of voltaic elements, as at $a$, a current of electricity is set in motion in the thin coil, and, in breaking contact, a second current in another direction traverses the same coil, sufficiently intense to give a powerful shock by grasping the handles $d,\; d$, communicating with the extremities $s,\; s\text{'}$ of the thin coil. The intensity of the secondary or reduced current is greatly increased by inserting a bar $i$, of soft wire, or, what is better, a bundle of soft iron wires, in the hollow axis of the reel, which becomes magnetic.

The ingenious method of breaking contact in this arrangement, which we owe to Dr Golding Bird, though shown in

fig. 96, is more distinctly represented in fig. 97. It consists of a base of wood, eight inches long and three broad, having at both ends a piece of hard wood, A, B, each piece having two holes excavated in it to hold mercury. The holes in A communicate with those in B, by thick copper wires D, D. A piece of soft iron wire EF, five inches long, and one-eighth inch diameter, supported with screws with milled heads, moves in a vertical plane upon the upright stem C. Round the wire EF are wound two helices of thin insulated copper wire in the same direction from right to left, so that the two ends of one helix may terminate in the copper points G, H, and those of the other in the points K and L. The small horse-shoe permanent magnets, shown in fig. 97, are fixed on proper supports, near the ends of the wire EF, so that, in depressing the end F of the bar, it may be opposite one, suppose the south pole of one magnet, and consequently the end E will be opposite the other, the north pole of the second magnet. On raising the end F, the contrary will take place, and to effect this the similar poles of the magnet should be in the same direction. Upon connecting the mercury cups in A or B, as shown in fig. 96, with the small voltaic battery at $a$, the wire EF will become a temporary magnet, if the ends of either helix are allowed to dip in the mercury; and if connection with the battery is properly made, the ends or poles of the temporary magnet will be repelled by the poles of the permanent magnet to which they are opposed; the wire EF will therefore move, and make the ends of the second helix dip in the other cups of mercury,—repulsion will again take place, and so on;—in this way, about 300 oscillations of EF can be obtained in a minute. Upon connecting the ends $p,\; p\text{'}$ of the thick helix with a single voltaic pair, by means of this contact-breaker, a series of powerful induced currents will be obtained from the extremities $s,\; s\text{'}$, of the larger helix. This connection is best made as in fig. 97, where R is a section of the reel, S one end of the short helix, connected with a cup of mercury in the piece B, Z the other end of the short helix, connected with one plate of the battery, while the wire T connects the other cup of mercury in B with the other plate of the voltaic pair. When the points G, H, K, L, leave the mercury, very brilliant sparks are produced. A loud snapping noise accompanies them, and a vivid combustion of the mercury, clouds of the oxide of mercury being largely evolved. If the ends P, R', fig. 97, or $s,\; s\text{'}$, fig. 96, have platinum points, and are immersed in water, acidulated with sulphuric acid, torrents of minute bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen are evolved; and if, instead of water, the points are pressed upon paper, moistened with iodide of potassium, iodine and oxide of potassium are separated. Solutions of sulphate of potash and soap, chloride of potassium, sodium, and antimony, and copper, are also rapidly decomposed. Dr Page was the first person who suggested the application of permanent magnets for the purpose of breaking contact,

¹ Lectures on Electricity, p. 352.

Magneto- though Dr Bird afterwards, and without knowing this, Electricity. made the same application.¹

One of the most important of our magneto-electrical machines is the induction apparatus of M. Ruhmkorff, who by a succession of improvements has brought it to a high degree of perfection. In its earliest form, in 1851, it produced, with two elements of Bunsen, sparks in air 4 inches long, or in vacuo beams of light similar to those of the most powerful electrical machines. In its more recent state it produces, with twenty-five elements of Bunsen, sparks five feet long. The Academy of Sciences, in 1858, adjudged to its inventor Tremont's prize of 1000 francs for the years 1856-7, and also for 1858, 1859, and 1860, making in all 5000 francs.

The following is a brief description of this coil, in its best and most recent form, as constructed by Mr W. D. Hart, philosophical instrument maker, Edinburgh. In its largest size (fig. 98) the apparatus consists of a primary coil

15 inches long, containing about 60 yards of stout covered wire in 400 convolutions. This coil is covered with several folds of varnished silk, in order to insulate it from the coil of fine wire in which the secondary current is excited, and the insulation may be increased by enclosing the primary coil in a glass tube. In Ruhmkorff's coil the fine wire is the 100th part of an inch in diameter, and he usually employs from 6000 to 10,000 yards of it, covered with silk and varnished. The contact-breaker is a small hammer, wrought by the attraction of the iron core in the centre of the bobbin, the points of contact being of thick platinum. On the recommendation of M. Fizeau, a large conducting surface, consisting of several square feet of tin foil, pasted on each side of varnished silk, is connected with each of the wires through which the voltaic current is transmitted. By this means the effect is greatly increased, as a more powerful battery may be made without injury to the platinum surface of the contact-breaker.

By a careful insulation of the wires more powerful results have been obtained than those from Ruhmkorff's coil, with considerably shorter lengths of wire. The length of the secondary wires, in the largest of Ruhmkorff's apparatus, is about ten miles. In the improved induction apparatus, shown in fig. 98, the length of the secondary wire is only three miles long, and sparks are obtained between the terminals from 3 to 4½ inches through free air.

We regret that our limits do not permit us to give an account of some interesting experiments of Mr Noad, on the effects of strong and weak electrical currents,² on long flat coils of considerable breadth of surface, and of various inventions made in the United States by Dr Henry, Dr Page, and other eminent philosophers, an account of which will be found in Professor Silliman's American Journal of Science.

While investigating the influence of heat in voltaic combinations, Dr Seebeck of Berlin was led to the important Seebeck's discovery that magnetism was developed in two metals form- discoveries. ing a circuit, when the equilibrium of temperature in that circuit was disturbed.

If A B C D, for example (fig. 99), be a metallic circuit, consisting of an arch of bismuth, A B C, and an arch of copper, A D C, then if one of the junctions, A, is heated, an electrical current is established, passing into the heated junction from the bismuth to the copper. From many experiments Dr Seebeck found that, in various circuits formed with bismuth and other metals, the current always passes from the bismuth to the other metals, the bismuth losing positive electricity, or becoming negative with all the other metals.

The order of the metals, beginning with galena, in which they are negative in reference to those which precede them, is given in the following table, which, excepting some additions and alterations, was drawn up by Professor Oersted.

Galena, placed above bismuth by Professor Cumming.
BISMUTH.
Mercury placed here by Professor Cumming, but beside lead by Oersted.
Nickel.
Platinum, very variable in its results.
Palladium.
Cobalt.
Uranium.
Manganese.
Titanium.
Tin, English and Bohemian.
Lead,³ pure lead and that occurring in trade.
Brass, different specimens give different results.
Gold purified by antimony, Oersted, and also that reduced from the oxide.

Copper placed here by Professor Cumming.
Silver purified by cupellation, and also that produced from the chloride.
Uranium.
Molybdenum.
Rhodium.
Iridium.
Zinc, pure and that occurring in trade.
Wolfram.
Cadmium.
Charcoal.
Plumbago.
Steel.
Iron, pure iron and that occurring in trade.
Arsenic.
ANTIMONY.
Tellurium.

Although Dr Seebeck found that most of the metals which stand near each other in the above series produce feeble thermo-electricity, and those more distant a more powerful effect, yet this law did not always hold. Tellurium, for example, is less thermo-electric with bismuth, and most of the other metals, than antimony is; and with silver it is more effective than most of the metals above it. Antimony, too, is more effective with cadmium than with mercury; while iron is very feebly thermo-electric with most of the other metals, especially nickel and cobalt.

The effects of the sulphurets Dr Seebeck found to be remarkable. Sulphuret of lead becomes negative even in contact with the bismuth. The sulphurets of iron, arsenic, cobalt and arsenic, and copper, all of which have a maximum of sulphur, stand near to bismuth; while all the sulphurets, with a minimum of sulphur, have nearly the same power as antimony. The sulphuret of copper, with a minimum of sulphur, occupies a place even below antimony. Concentrated nitric and sulphuric acids stand above bismuth; while concentrated solutions of potass and of soda are below antimony and tellurium.

It has been considered probable that the specific heat

¹ See Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag. Jan. 1838, vol. xii. p. 18; Noad's Lectures, p. 364; and Dr Golding Bird's Elements of Nat. Phil. chap. xvii.

² Professor Daniell places lead before tin.

Thermo- and the conducting power of the metals perform a part in Electricity. the thermo-electric phenomena; but this is not established by observations yet made.

The following table, by Professor Cumming, shows the

relations of the thermo-electric and voltaic series, and of Thermo- the series of conductors of heat and electricity. To these Electricity. we have added two columns on the optical properties of the metals:—

The structure or the crystalline arrangement of the particles of bodies seems to exercise some influence over their thermo-electric powers. In a thermo-electric combination of zinc and silver, for example, the electricity increases with the temperature up to about 250° of Fahrenheit, when it ceases altogether, and by increase of temperature the electric current is re-established in an opposite direction.

In order to measure the thermo-electric power of different binary combinations of metals, from the same differences of temperature, a compound circuit must be formed of all those which we desire to compare. The junctions of the metals must be kept at the temperature of melting ice, excepting the junction which is to be made active, and which is to be plunged into hot oil. In this way the mere conducting power of the circuit is the same in every experiment, and the results obtained become strictly comparable.

The following table, given by Becquerel,³ exhibits the quantities of the currents for a difference of temperature of 36°, of pairs of eight metals differently arranged. The lengths of the metals were 7.88 inches, and their diameter about the 200th of an inch. The sign + indicates the metal from which the electric current proceeds.

Thermo-Electric Power of Different Metallic Couples.

If we compare the numbers in the last column, we shall find, as M. Becquerel states, that, for a temperature of 36°, each metal acquires such a degree of thermo-electric power that the intensity of the current, produced by the contact

of the two metals, is equal to the difference of the quantities which represent each of these actions in each metal. Thus, if we call the power of each metal $p$, we shall have, in the case of the iron and copper junction, $p.\; \backslash text\{\; iron\}\; -\; p.\; \backslash text\{\; platina\}\; =\; 36.07$. Subtracting the first from the second, we have $p.\; \backslash text\{\; copper\}\; -\; p.\; \backslash text\{\; platina\}\; =\; 8.11$, instead of 8.55, given by experiment. The iron and tin junction gives 31.24, and that of copper and tin 3.50. The difference in that of iron and copper is thus 27.74, in place of 27.96 by experiment. The intensity of the thermo-electric current being, therefore, equal to the difference of the thermo-electric action produced in each metal by the same temperature, we shall obtain the powers of each of these metals as follows:—Calling the power, or thermo-electric action of iron at 36° Fahrenheit, $x$, we shall have,—

Hence, if $x$ were known, we should obtain $p$ upon the supposition that the thermo-electric powers are proportional to the radiating powers of the metals. M. Becquerel has obtained the following numbers;—

These values will suit any thermo-electric circuit, and Nobili's all cases where the thermo-electric power increases with experience the temperature, that is for all temperatures below 122° Fahrenheit.

M. Nobili⁴ formed similar circuits, with substances whose conducting power was inferior to that of the metals. Having made cylinders of porcelain clay, about 2½ inches long, and 3½ lines in diameter, he coiled round the ends of each of them cotton steeped in a conducting liquid, by which they were made to communicate directly with the galvanometer. One end of the cylinder was brought to a point, and after it was made red-hot by a spirit-lamp, he

¹ See Phil. Trans. 1830, p. 294.

² Id. p. 324.

³ Traité Exp. de l'Electricité, tome II. p. 53.

⁴ Biblioth. Univers. tome xxxvii. p. 54.

Thermo-electricity. pressed it against the cold extremity of the other cylinder, when he found that a current was established from the hot extremity to the cold one. This effect, as M. Becquerel states, arises from the mutual reaction of the two portions of water of different temperatures.

It did not escape the sagacity of Dr Seebeck that the thermo-electric current might be increased, by forming a compound thermo-electric current, and arranging the metallic couples in a series analogous to those in the voltaic circuit. Having met, however, with some obstacles in this part of his inquiry, he discontinued the investigation, which was taken up without their knowing that he had entered upon it by Baron Fourier and Professor Oersted. They first employed a hexagonal combination of three pieces of bismuth and three of antimony soldered together. One side of the hexagon was placed in the magnetic direction, and a compass put below it. One of the junctions was then heated, then two, not adjacent, then three, always leaving one junction not heated between the two heated ones. By heating one junction the needle deviated some degrees, still more by heating two, and still more by heating three junctions. When three junctions were cooled with ice, the other three having the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere, effects still more distinct were produced. When three alternate junctions were heated, and the other three cooled with ice, the needle deviated sixty degrees.

In a rectangular circuit, with twenty-two bars of antimony and twenty-two of bismuth soldered together, the same effects were obtained. After dissolving one of the junctions, a little mercury cup was soldered to each of the disjoined bars, so that the circuit could be re-established by different means. A copper wire, 4 inches long, and 1-25th of an inch in diameter, nearly re-established the current; and it was completely re-established by two parallel pieces of the same wire. A wire of the same diameter, but three feet long, was found a tolerably good conductor; but a platina wire, about 16 inches long, and 1-50th of an inch in diameter, scarcely transmitted a fortieth part of the effect. Acids, and solutions of alkalies, and other metallic oxides, though good conductors in the voltaic or hydro-electric circuit, insulated entirely the thermo-electric current. The same effect was produced by two discs of silver, separated by the thinnest blotting-paper moistened with sulphate of copper. In these experiments the intense current produced no chemical effects, no ignition of the wires, and no electric condensation; but a prepared frog was made to palpitate.

In thermo-electric currents, which differ only in lengths, the shortest is the most powerful, a circuit of double length having little more than half the effect. In order to find the law of increased effect, as depending on the number of junctions, Professor Oersted composed circuits of equal length with different numbers of junctions.

In fig. 100 is shown a simple circuit consisting of one bar, a a, of antimony, and one, b b, of bismuth; and in fig. 101, a complex circuit of the same length and materials. When one of the junctions in fig. 101 was heated or cooled, and two of the junctions at the extremities of the diagonals

in fig. 101 heated or cooled to the same degree, the deviation of the needle was 22° in the first case and 30° in the second.

In like manner open circuits, as in figs. 102, 103, having Professor Oersted's experiments.

each the same length, but double that of the preceding two, had the one one junction, and the other three junctions, heated or cooled equally, the first gave a deviation of about 14°, and the other nearly 32°.

"In several complex circuits," says Professor Oersted,¹ "it is found that the heating or cooling of one junction only produces twice the angular deviations of that added by the addition of one active junction more. The effect of one active junction, when the others are at rest, is, by experiment, found to be twice the effect of all the arrangements divided by the sum of the elements + one. The effect of each addition of a new active junction is only half this quantity, and seems even to be in a decreasing ratio when the number of junctions is great."

From these and other observations, it appears that the thermo-electric current produces a prodigious quantity of electricity, but in a state of very feeble intensity, while the voltaic current has a very great intensity. The former is impaired by the resistance opposed to it by a long multiplying wire, while the latter is increased in surmounting this resistance. M. Pouillet has endeavoured to compare M. Pouillet's intensity of these two currents, by passing the hydro-electric current through a platinum wire long enough to reduce it to an intensity which will just balance the thermo-electric current. In one case he found that 590 feet of platinum wire, .006 of an inch in diameter, including the resistance of the battery, reduced a hydro-electric current, produced by twelve pairs of plates with double coppers, to an equilibrium with that of one thermo-electric pair of bismuth and copper, in a circuit of 65.6 feet of copper wire, .039 of an inch in diameter, with a difference of temperature of 76° Fahrenheit. By computing the rotation between the electro-motive forces and the resistance in these two cases, he found that the hydro-electric current had an intensity 114,000 times greater than that of a single pair of bismuth and copper, produced by a difference of temperature, between the two junctions, of 108° of Fahrenheit.²

In order to compare the conductivity of metals for thermo-electro currents, M. Pouillet³ employed two equal bility of metals for thermo-electricity. The first was weakened by making it traverse the metallic wire submitted to experiment; and the second was weakened precisely the same

Thermo-electricity. quantity, by traversing lengths, more or less great, of another wire, which served as the term of comparison. The following table shows the results of this comparison, the conductivity of pure mercury being reckoned 100.

Hence it appears that palladium is the best conductor of thermo-electricity, and mercury the worst, having sixty times less conductivity than palladium. That which has a slight effect on the conductivity of mercury produces a prodigious variation in that of iron or steel. Even the heat of the hand produces very sensible effects, and what M. Pouillet justly thinks still more wonderful, the heating to redness of some millimetres of the length of a wire of iron or steel, is sufficient to make its conductivity three or four times less.

When thermo-electric currents are produced by a single element, and the thermo-electric power remains the same, M. Pouillet found that the intensity of the current which it produces is inversely as the length of the circuit, and directly as the conductivity of the wire or rod which forms the current. He found, also, that in a thermo-electric circuit composed of wires of different sections, the elementary force of the current is the same in all powers. If we take equal intervals on these different wires, the direct currents will be found to have different intensities, which are nearly in the inverse ratio of the sections of the wires in the intervals of deviation. M. Pouillet succeeded, also, in establishing the curious fact, which had been recognised by M. Marianini,¹ that several electric currents propagate themselves in the interior of bodies, as if they were alone, like light and heat.

The first persons who succeeded in constructing thermo-electric piles were MM. Nobili and Melloni, who employed them successfully in their experiments on radiant heat. This instrument, however, has since been improved by Melloni, and we shall therefore describe it in preference after M. Becquerel. M. Melloni constructed his thermo-electric pile of fifty small bars of bismuth and antimony placed

Fig. 104.

in a bundle, as shown at FF' in fig. 104, the length of the

bundle being 30 millimetres, and its section 96 centimetres square. The two terminal faces are blackened. The bars of bismuth, which alternate with those of antimony, are soldered at their extremities, and separated throughout their whole lengths by an insulating substance. The first and the last bar have each attached to them a copper wire, abutting against one of the pins C, C' of the same metal, passing through a piece of ivory fixed in the ring AA'. The interval between the interior surface of this ring and the elements of the pile is filled with insulating matter. The free extremities of the two wires communicate with the ends of the wire of a multiplier, the needle of which indicates when the temperature of the anterior face of the pile rises or falls above that of the posterior face. Two metallic tubes, B, B, polished without and blackened within, are fitted to the two ends of the pile, to protect them from lateral radiations. The multiplier is shown in fig. 105, and multiplier.

Fig. 105.

where ABC is the frame enveloped by the copper wire, whose extremities abut against the metallic tubes FF', fig. 106. This frame is fixed on a horizontal stage DE, which can turn in its own plane, and round its centre, by means of a toothed wheel and pinion placed below, and moved by the milled head G. MN is the support of the astatic system of the two magnetic needles, suspended by the silk fibre VL, and the cylinder of glass RS covers the apparatus, and rests on the base KI. Fig. 106 is a section of the apparatus, by a plane passing through the support and one of the tubes of communication. The needles are 53 millimetres long, the diameter of the copper wire is 0.76 millimetres, and it is doubly covered with silk, and makes 150 circumvolutions round the frame, which is 6 millimetres high, having its length a little greater than that of the needles.²

We have already seen that thermo-electricity possesses the same general characters as common and voltaic electricity. Although Oersted failed in obtaining chemical action from his thermo-electric combinations, yet Professor Botto³ of Turin subsequently decomposed acidulated water. His apparatus consisted of a metallic wire or chain, composed of 120 pieces of platinum wire, each an inch long, and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{100\}$th of an inch in diameter, alternately with the same number of pieces of soft wire of the same dimensions. This chain was wrapped spirally round a wooden rule 18 inches long, so that the joints were placed alternately at each side of the rule, receding from the

Fig. 106.

¹ Ann. de Chim. &c. tome xiii. p. 131.

² Becquerel's Travail, &c. tome iii. p. 425.

³ Bibliothèque Universelle, Sept. 1832.

Thermo-electricity. wood at one side to the distance of four lines. By using a spirit-lamp the same length as the helix, and a Nobili's galvanometer, a very energetic current was shown to exist, and the decomposition of acidulated water was increased, by substituting copper in place of platinum poles, in which case hydrogen only was set free. An increased temperature augmented the current and the decomposition. M. Botto obtained still more powerful effects by a pile of bismuth and antimony, consisting of 140 elements forming a parallelopiped, with a base of $2\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inches, and a height of 1 inch.

Electric spark from the thermo-electric pile. A distinct electric spark has also been obtained from the thermo-electric pile, by the Chevalier Antinori of Florence. Professor Linari¹ of Siena verified this result with a Nobili's pile of 25 elements and temporary magnet, with an electro-dynamic spiral 805 feet long. With this apparatus he obtained a brilliant spark, visible in open day, whenever the contact was broken. With this pile, and temperatures from freezing to boiling water, he readily decomposed water, and also nitrate of silver. The same thermo-electric current magnetised an unmagnetic needle, and produced the phenomenon of the palpitation of mercury. Professor Wheatstone verified these experiments in 1837, by a thermo-electric pile of 33 elements of bismuth and antimony, forming a bundle three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$ long. The poles were connected by two thick wires, with a spiral of copper ribbon 50 feet long and $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inch broad, the coils being insulated by brown paper and silk. One face of the pile was heated by red-hot iron brought near it, and the other cooled by ice. Two strong wires connected the poles of the pile and the spiral, and the contact was broken, when necessary, in a mercury cup, between one extremity of the spiral and one of these wires. A distinct spark was seen in open day whenever the contact was broken.²

Mr Watkins' thermo-electric pile. The thermo-electric pile has been greatly improved by Mr Watkins, who employs a flat copper ribbon coil. In piles varying from 15 to 30 pairs of elements, he obtains brilliant sparks, by merely pouring hot water on one end, while the other has the temperature of the air.

Researches of Professor Andrews. Professor Andrews of Belfast has recently succeeded in developing thermo-electric currents, by simply bringing two metallic wires at different temperatures into contact with a fused salt, between which and the wires no chemical action takes place. This result he first obtained by means of fused borax. He took two similar wires of platina, and connected them with the extremities of the copper wire of one of Gourjon's galvanometers, and fused a small globule of borax in the flame of a spirit-lamp on the free extremity of one of the platina wires, and having introduced the free extremity of the other into the flame, he brought the latter, raised to a higher temperature than the former, into contact with the fused globule. When this was done, the needle of the galvanometer was instantly driven with great violence to the limit of the scale. The direction of the current was always from the hotter platina wire, through the salt, to the colder wire. Professor Andrews obtained a permanent electric current in the same direction by simply fusing the globule between the two wires, and applying the flame of the lamp in such a manner, that the wires, at their points of contact with the fused salt, had different temperatures. Fused carbonate of soda gave similar but more powerful currents than borax. Carbonate of potash, chloride and iodide of potassium, sulphate of soda, chloride of strontium, heated glass, &c., produced similar currents; and even boracic acid, though such an imperfect conductor, deflected the needle $40^\backslash circ$.

The currents thus produced have an intensity inferior to

that of the hydro-electric currents, and they are capable of decomposing with great facility water and other electro-lytes.

Before the salts were actually fused, Professor Andrews found that electrical currents were generated whose directions no longer followed the simple law, but varied in the most singular and perplexing manner, passing first from the hot to the cold wire, then by more heat from the cold to the hot, and by more heat still from the hot to the cold wire.

Professor Andrews obtained similar currents, by interposing certain minerals between unequally heated platina wires. Mica, heated very strongly, caused a deflection in the needle of $7^\backslash circ$, and Stilbite a deflection of $25^\backslash circ$, the current being in both cases from the hot to the cold wire.³

Thermo-electric rotations were, we believe, first produced by Professor Cumming, by means of a very simple apparatus. He formed a rectangle of silver and platina, as shown in fig. 107. The three upper sides are formed of silver, and the lower of platina. When suspended, as shown in the figure, and when one of the junctions was heated, it revolved from left to right, when the pole of a magnet was presented to another junction. When the rectangle was suspended upon the loadstone itself, and heat applied to one of the junctions, the rectangle soon began to turn.

When a chain or wire, consisting of alternate links, or pieces of platinum and silver, is made part of the voltaic circuit, the links or portions of platinum wire will become red-hot, while those of silver remain dark, and comparatively cold.

In studying the effects of thermo-electric currents, M. Peltier's Peltier made the interesting discovery, that cold, instead of heat, is produced at the points of junction of certain crystallizable metals. The instrument by which he obtained these interesting results is shown in fig. 108, where A, B are

two thermo-electric couples in bismuth and antimony, C a copper wire which unites the antimony $a\text{'}$ of the upper couple to the bismuth $b$ of the lower couple. D, E, copper wires communicating with the galvanometer G of 84 coils, and completing the circuit between the upper bismuth $b\text{'}$ and the lower antimony $a\text{'}$. F, H are the free extremities of $a\text{'}$, $b\text{'}$, which form a pair of pincers, which press against each other by a spring. The bar JK is formed by a bar of

Thermo-electricity. antimony $a\text{'}\text{'}$, and of bismuth $b\text{'}\text{'}$, which ought to traverse the electric current. I, M, M' are conductors of the pile P, N a plate of copper, with a graduated circle and magnetic needle O, for measuring the quantity of electricity which passes through the entire circuit M, M', N, K, $b\text{'}\text{'}$, $a\text{'}\text{'}$, I, P. The galvanometer G indicates the electricity produced by the variations of temperature of the ends F, H, resulting from those of the bars J, K, the closed circuit of this electricity being $a\text{'}$, C, $a\text{'}\text{'}$, E', c, D, $b\text{'}$, $a\text{'}$. The ball A' of an air thermometer (with its capillary tube E plunged in a vessel d of coloured alcohol) is crossed by a compound bar $a\text{'}\text{'}$, $b\text{'}\text{'}$, of bismuth and antimony united at S'. A graduated scale is placed behind the thermometer tube E'. The current of the pile P is received by copper conductors F, G.

If we place the wires of different metals between the thermo-electric pincers F, H, and vary the intensity of the current, we shall observe a rise of temperature when the conductors are homogeneous, the heat being the same throughout the whole length of the wires, with the exception of their extremities, where it increases or diminishes according as the pincers which retain the wire are worse or better conductors than itself. When copper pincers are used, a depression of temperature is felt at the distance of two or three centimetres, according to the intensity of the current. M. Peltier has found that when the current has double the intensity, or when the section of the conductor is one-half, the temperature is tripled, and that cold is produced when the current goes from the bismuth to the antimony, and heat when it goes from the antimony to the bismuth. The results which he obtained tend to prove that the two electricities produce heat by their union, however feeble be their intensities.¹

M. Peltier's thermo-electric hygrometer, for determining by the change of temperature whether a solution or a chemical combination has taken place when two bodies are brought into contact, is shown in fig. 109. M. Becquerel had long ago shown that when a simple solution takes place no electrical effect is produced, but that when two substances chemically combine, positive electricity passes from an alkali to an acid, and negative electricity from an acid to an alkali. The nature of the electric wires therefore determines by means of a multiplier, whether combination or simple solution has taken place. But as a change of temperature also takes place, M. Peltier has employed this as the means of deciding whether solution or combination has taken place, cold being produced in the one case and heat in the other. This hygrometer is shown without the galvanometer in fig. 109, where A is a wooden disc for supporting the thermo-electric couples, being itself supported by a rod and bar; B, B, B, three couples of bismuth or antimony forming the thermoscopic support; W, W, the wires leading to the multiplier; D, a platina capsule filled with distilled water, which is to be placed on the couples; E, E, a cylinder of card; and F, F, a glass receiver open at top, but surrounded with a paper to prevent radiation. When distilled water is placed in the capsule, its spontaneous evaporation produces a depression of temperature which varies ordinarily from $40^\{\backslash circ\}$ to $60^\{\backslash circ\}$. As this apparatus is very sensible, the needle of the multiplier arrives rapidly at $90^\{\backslash circ\}$; but this inconvenience is removed by placing in the circuit supplementary conductors, which diminish the intensity of the current, and bring back the needle to the first $20^\{\backslash circ\}$. Tables are then formed which give the ratio between the

deviations of the needles, the intensities of the current, and the differences. A very extended scale is thus formed, which may begin at $150^\{\backslash circ\}$ above zero, and descend indefinitely. To compare this instrument, we have only to determine the extreme dryness produced with muriate of lime placed in a close vessel. When the saturation of the air produces no evaporation, the capsule remains at the surrounding temperature, and the needle at zero. When we have determined the force corresponding to the number of degrees given by extreme dryness, we divided this force into 100 parts, corresponding to 100 degrees of ordinary hygrometers.

Dr Locke, professor of chemistry in the medical college of Ohio, has lately constructed a new thermoscopic galvanometer, the peculiarity of which is the massiveness of the coil, which affords a free passage to currents of the most feeble intensity, and enables them to deflect a very heavy needle. The coil is made of a copper fillet about 50 feet long, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th of an inch wide, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{8\}$th thick, and weighing between four and five pounds. This coil is not made in a pile at the diameter of the circle in which the needle is to revolve, but is opened out, the several turns lying side by side, and covering almost the whole of that circle above and below. It is wound closely, and in parallel turns, on a circular piece of board $11\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ inches in diameter, and half an inch thick, covering the whole of it except two small opposite segments of about $90^\{\backslash circ\}$ each. The board being extracted leaves a cavity of its own shape, to be occupied by the needle. The copper fillet is not covered with silk or any other coating, but the turns of it are separated at their ends by venders of wood just so far as to prevent contact throughout. The coil is supported on a wooden ring with brass feet and levelling screws, and surrounded by a brass hoop with flat glass cover, in the centre of which is inserted a brass tube for suspending by a silk fibre one of Nobili's double astatic needles, each part being about 11 inches long, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{4\}$th of an inch wide, and $\backslash frac\{1\}\{8\}$th thick. The lower part plays within the coil, and the upper part above it, and the thin white deal placed upon it. This instrument is peculiarly fitted for experiments in a class. It is very sensible to a single pair of thermo-electric metals, to the action of which it seems peculiarly adapted. With a battery of five couples of bismuth and antimony, the radiation of a person 12 feet distant, without any reflector, and when the temperature of the air was $72^\{\backslash circ\}$, moved the needle sensibly. If a thermo-electric pile, massive in proportion to the coil, is used, this thermoscope would exhibit the experiments of Melloni satisfactorily to a large class. A more detailed account of this instrument will be found in the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, October 1837, vol. xi. p. 378.

We shall now conclude this article with a brief notice of Dr Draper's investigations of Dr Draper of New York, on the per's re-electromotive power of heat. The apparatus which he searches.

employed is shown in fig. 110, where A A is a glass vessel

¹ M. Becquerel's Traité, &c. tome III. p. 165, and v. p. 286.

² The degrees of the galvanometer we presume. M. Becquerel's Traité, &c. tome v. p. 243.

Thermo-Electricity. about 3 inches in diameter, with a neck wide enough to receive a mercurial thermometer b, and the extremity of a pair of thermo-electric wires about a foot long, and the $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch in diameter, soldered at s with hard solder. The free extremities of these wires dip into the glass cups d, d, filled with mercury, and immersed in a trough e, containing water and pounded ice. By means of the copper wires f, f, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch in diameter, the apparatus is connected with the mercury cups of the galvanometer, the coil of which is of copper wire, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$th of an inch thick, and making only twelve turns round the astatic needles, whose deviations are determined by the torsion of a glass thread, as invented by Dr Ritchie. When a copper and iron wire are used, they indicate temperatures with a promptitude and accuracy quite surprising. In using this apparatus, the vessel AA is filled two-thirds with water, the bulb of the thermometer being in the middle of the vessel, and the soldered extremity s of the wires in contact with it. The wires f, f, are then placed in the cups, and the trough e filled with water and pounded ice, and carefully surrounded with flannel. The water in AA is then brought to the boiling point with a spirit-lamp, and kept at that temperature till the astatic needles and thermometer are steady. For temperatures above $212^\{\backslash circ\}$, Dr Draper substitutes for the glass vessel a tubulated retort containing quicksilver. Dr Draper's experiments were all made with the metals in the form of wires, and he obtained the following general results:—

1. 1. Equal increments of heat do not set in motion equal quantities of electricity.
2. 2. The tension undergoes a slight increase with increase of temperature.
3. 3. The quantity of electricity evolved at any given temperature is independent of the amount of heated surface, a point being as efficacious as an indefinitely extended surface.
4. 4. The quantities of electricity evolved in a pile of pairs is directly proportional to the number of the elements.

Dr Draper has been led to the following forms of construction, which give peculiar advantages to thermo-electric combinations.

In fig. 111, A, let a be a bar of antimony, and b one of bismuth, soldered at e d, and let the temperature be raised at d, a current is excited, which does not pass round the bars a b, but in a shorter and readier path, through the metals between e d, circulating as shown by the arrows. Nor will the whole current pass round the bars till the temperature of the soldered surface has become uniform. The combination A will therefore be improved by giving it the form in fig. B, a part being cut out at the dotted

lines. In this form the whole current will be immediately forced to pass along the bars, and in such a pair the thermo-Electricity.

perature will change very quickly. Dr Draper considers the form in fig. C as the best for a thermo-electric couple. In this form a is a semi-cylindrical bar of antimony, b one of bismuth, united together by the opposite corners of a lozenge-shaped piece of copper c. From its extent of surface the copper becomes readily hot and cold, and may be made very thin. With a pair of bars three-fourths of an inch thick, and a circular copper plate e, with both surfaces blackened, Dr Draper repeated the greater part of those experiments which M. Melloni made with his multiplier. Dr Draper found that thermo-electric currents, evolved by pairs of different metals, do not differ specifically, like the rays of light and heat.¹

It appears from the experiments of Matteucci, Franz, Relation Mousson, Magnus, and other observers, that the molecular constitution of bodies exercises a powerful influence over thermo-electric phenomena. From the results of these molecular structure and thermoelectricity. researches, it appears to M. Delarive² to be well established, "that in thermo-electric phenomena, the cause of the currents exists not in the fact itself of the propagation of the heat, but in the molecular effects that accompany this propagation. Also, when the two portions of a body are perfectly homogeneous to the left and to the right of the heated point, the molecular effects produced by the heat being identical, two currents are the result, which being called upon to traverse the same circuit, must be equal at the same time that they are contrary; but the slightest difference in the chemical nature, or in the molecular constitution of these two portions, brings about an intensity greater in one of the currents than in the other, and consequently produces an effect which is detected by the galvanometer."

For further information on thermo-electricity, and the other subjects of which this article treats, the reader is referred to M. Becquerel's admirable work, entitled Traité Expérimental de l'Electricité et du Magnétisme, et de leurs Rapports avec les Phénomènes Naturels. Five vols., i. and ii. Paris, 1834; iii. 1835; iv. 1836; and v. 1837. and Delarive's Electricity, vol. ii. part v. chap. i. (p. 11).

¹ See Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag. June 1840, vol. xvi. p. 451.

² Treatise, &c. vol. ii. p. 563.

Voltaire. VOLTtaire (François Marie Arouet de), the glory and the shame of French literature, was born at Châteauneuf, near Sceaux, 20th February 1694. His parents were François Arouet, notary at Châtelet, and Marguerite d'Aumart, of a noble family of Poitou. Like Newton, he came into the world with little chance of remaining in it; yet, like Newton, lived to fill it with his fame. There, however, the parallel ends; the pure, steady lustre of Newton's name little resembles the fitful, phosphorescent light of that baleful glory which streams from the name of Voltaire. Could the friends of the sickly infant have cast his horoscope, and foreseen all the misery which that long life, destined to reach the extreme age of man, would endure and inflict, they would have wished that his life might be as frail as it promised to be.

He was baptised 22d November 1694, his godfather being the Abbé de Châteauneuf, one of the most abandoned men even of that corrupt age. As a biographer of Voltaire remarks, "impiety seems to have received him from his very cradle;" certainly from the baptismal font. His godfather proved an apt teacher of a ready pupil. He boasted that, at the age of three, his precocious charge knew by heart an impious poem attributed to J. B. Rousseau, which the prudent Abbé had made his first reading book. Certainly some excuse is to be made for this wretched child; the tendencies to scepticism and impiety, which probably the most careful education could not have eradicated, were assiduously nurtured from his infancy; it was like forcing fruit in the tropics.

Accordingly we are told that, even while a boy at the College of Louis-le-grand, his sallies of blasphemous precocity often astonished his comrades and terrified his masters, though they must, we should imagine, have delighted his godfather. This institution was then under the management of the Jesuits. One of the professors, Father Le Jay, sorrowfully and truly predicted that the young scapegrace would prove a "pillar of Deism in France."

From college his father, who destined him for public life, sent him to study law. Like Hume, he was soon disgusted with jurisprudence, and from that time resolved to give his life to literature. His godfather introduced him to some of that improving "polite society" which reigned in Paris during the closing years of Louis Quatorze. It was a fine school for the next generation, and for the one immediately preceding the Revolution. It is thus described in the article on Voltaire in the Biographie Universelle:—"Whilst the superstitious devotion of the old king forced all faces to put on a mask of hypocrisy, or at least of decorum, some men, distinguished by rank or genius, lovers of poetry and pleasure, emancipated from all prejudice and free from all belief, took a piquant delight in secretly insulting all that they seemed to respect in public; that is, religion, government, and good manners. In their elegant orgies they practised refined debauchery, lampooned with gaiety, and blasphemed with a grace." Among them figured no less than the Prince of Conti, the Duke of Vendôme and his brother the Grand Prior, the Duke of Sully, and others equally ennobled by rank and degraded by vice. This was the second stage of Voltaire's curriculum, and surely his pious godfather the Abbé must have watched with transports his rapid graduation in the graces in which he himself excelled. The vivacity and genius of Voltaire made him a favourite in this brilliant society. But it did not make him quite idle; his dramatic taste was already strong, and, youth as he was, he had a tragedy—his subject no less than Edipus—on the anvil. In his eighteenth year

(1712) he competed for a poetic prize proposed by the academy, and was defeated by a very inferior competitor. His father, like the merchant in Rob Roy, thought his son lost when he heard of his making verses and living in such improving company; and by way of operating a diversion, sent him to Holland in 1713, in the train of the French ambassador. But he had still greater reason for apprehension when he heard that, in his new position, his son was not only making verses but making love, which last he did with great ardour to the daughter of a Madame du Noyer, a Protestant by profession, but an intriguing and profligate woman. She made a complaint to the ambassador, and to back it had the shameless folly to publish the correspondence of Voltaire and her daughter. Voltaire was recalled. With characteristic zeal for the faith, Voltaire would fain have pressed religion into the service of his passion. He persuaded some of the bishops and Jesuits that Mdlle. Noyer ought to be forcibly reclaimed and educated in France, to save her soul from heresy! This pious design was not carried into effect, and Voltaire had to mourn the loss of the church—and his own.

Voltaire had considerable trouble, as may be supposed, in making his peace with his father. The old man was as much plagued by an elder son, who had become a Jansenist, as by the literature and the libertinism of the younger. "I have two fools of sons," said he; "the one a fool in verse, the other a fool in prose." Voltaire proposed to exile himself to America, only begging beforehand, as he sentimentally expressed it, "to embrace his father's knees." This was granted, and the old man relented. He placed the young penitent in the office of an attorney; but Voltaire found the practice of the law at least as distasteful as the science of it had been, and he sought solace in very different pursuits. His father now despaired of fixing him to any thing. At length a friend of the family, M. de Caumartin, who held an office under government, offered to take the youth to his estate at Saint. Ange, and pledged himself that his charge should not return till he had made choice of a profession. He fulfilled his promise in one sense, but not in that intended; for it so chanced that Voltaire was confirmed in all his literary predilections. At the chateau lived M. de Caumartin the elder, a very old man, who was full of stories about the court of Henry IV. and the friends of Sully, and of course knew all the intrigues of the court of Louis XIV. Voltaire with characteristic ardour instantly began to meditate his Henriade and his Age of Louis XIV.

His next step was into the Bastille. Louis XIV. was just dead; and Voltaire, whose satirical humour and malice were already pretty notorious, was unjustly suspected of writing some lines, which reflected on the Grand Monarque. His imprisonment lasted more than a year, which he employed on his Henriade and his Edipus. He was at length through the intervention of a courtier relieved by the regent, who, pleased with his genius, consoled the young poet for his captivity with the promise of a sum of money. "I thank your royal highness," said Voltaire, "for the care you have taken of my board, but I hope you will never more trouble yourself about my lodging." It was at this time that he changed his name from Arouet to Voltaire, saying, "I have done very badly with my first name, I should like to see whether this will succeed better."

In 1718 was acted his play of Edipus; it was received with great applause; and his father, a gratified witness of his triumph, condescended at last to sanction his being a poet. Banished soon after from the capital, for presumed

Voltaire. complicity in some political intrigue, he was permitted to return to Paris in 1720, for the representation of his tragedy of Artémire; but he returned to no triumphs,—his tragedy was unmercifully hissed. Two years after he visited Holland, in company with Madame Rupelmonde. In passing through Brussels he saw J. B. Rousseau, and commenced and finished his concise friendship with that eccentric man, "whose genius he admired, and whose misfortunes he pitied." They met with the complimentary raptures with which Frenchmen alone can meet; but the enchantment lasted only a moment. Rousseau read to Voltaire his Ode to Posterity. "My friend," said Voltaire, "I am afraid that is a letter which will never reach its address." Voltaire, in his turn, read to Rousseau his Epistle to Urania; whereupon Rousseau put on a long face, and severely rebuked him for the impieties of that performance! The scene must have been exquisitely comic. They parted life-long enemies.

On his return to France, Voltaire passed some time in retirement, finishing his Henriade. Meantime in 1724 the Marianne of this fertile writer was acted, but with no better success than his Artémire. At length, anxious to publish the Henriade, he summoned the most fastidious of his friends to a critical rehearsal. It was to be read canto by canto. The ordeal proved a harder one than vanity could bear; and one day, losing patience under the severity of criticism, Voltaire cast his manuscript into the fire. It cost the President Hénault a fine pair of lace ruffles to save it from the flames. While Voltaire delayed the printing of his poem in order to render it more perfect, the infamous Abbé Desfontaines got hold of a copy, impudently interpolated some lines of his own, and surreptitiously printed it for his own profit, under the title of La Ligue. Voltaire was, of course, enraged; but the poem, disguised though it was, made so favourable an impression that he forgot his anger in the intoxication of success. His complacency even overflowed on the unprincipled instrument of that success. He not only forgave Desfontaines, but busied himself sometime after in procuring his release from the Bicêtre; but he was a man whom neither forgiveness nor benefits could bind, and he pursued Voltaire with inextinguishable malevolence.

If the Henriade increased his fame, it provoked the zeal of courtiers and priests; the one smelt sedition in his praises of Coligny, and the other discovered that the author was no better than a semi-Pelagian! No doubt it was news to Voltaire to find that he was even thus far on the road to orthodoxy. Liberty to publish was denied him, and the young king refused to accept the dedication.

About this time an adventure befell him, which revealed some of the perils of that brilliant circle of fashion which he still aspired to frequent. For some petulant reply to the chevalier de Rohan-Chabot, at the table of the Duke of Sully, the offended guest, shortly after, ordered his servants to inflict a dastardly personal chastisement on Voltaire. Having complained in vain to the Duke, whom he implored to aid him in his revenge, he is said to have shut himself up in a rage, and to have practised fencing, till he felt himself a match for his opponent; he then sent a challenge, couched in the most contemptuous terms. It was accepted; and the duel was to take place the next day. Meantime the affair got wind, and his base assailants took characteristic measures to prevent it. He was arrested, and a second time immured in the Bastille. There he remained six months; and on recovering his liberty, was ordered to leave the kingdom. He took refuge in England.

How deeply he felt the personal insult we may gather from the fact, that he is said to have covertly visited France, in the hope of confronting his adversary. Failing in this, and afraid of being discovered, he quickly returned to his asylum, where he sojourned more than two years (1726-1728).

He here made himself well acquainted with our language, and read very extensively in our literature. He was especially familiar with those infidel writers who, in the middle of the last century, exercised so malign an influence on our country,—such as Tindal, Chubb, Woolston, Collins, and, above all, Bolingbroke. From these Voltaire borrowed nearly all the arguments he afterwards used against Christianity; nor do we believe that in all his voluminous writings there is a single objection the germ of which may not be found in their pages. He had no occasion to borrow their ribaldry or their sarcasm; he had more than enough of his own. All their weapons he wielded after his own manner, with more wit, with more profanity, with more effrontery, and, if we except Bolingbroke, with more spirit and eloquence. But the weapons are all second-hand; in all the learning really necessary to decide on the claims of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, he was a mere sciolist. He was equally disqualified calmly to weigh the evidence by his intense prejudices. But we shall return to this topic by and by.

While in England, he wrote the tragedy of Brutus, which added a little, but not much, to his fame; published his first edition of the Henriade; collected some authentic materials for his Life of Charles XII.; and sketched those Philosophical Letters (otherwise called Lettres Anglaises) which were not published till some years after, but which, when published, roused against him the most violent resentment.

He at length returned to Paris, and taking lodgings in a remote faubourg, lived for some time an obscure life, occupied alternately with making books and making his fortune—two things very different, in general, but which Voltaire managed to combine. In the latter, he showed himself a very skilful adept, and was not less lucky than skilful; by his speculations in a lottery, in public scrip, and by some other ventures, he made considerable gains, and what he thus realized, he skilfully invested: so that, though some of his great friends sometimes condescended to borrow of him, and even so far honoured him as to forget to pay the interest, and now and then even to restore the principal, he somehow managed to repair these losses; and after "having lost much, given away much, and spent freely," he was at the end of life a rich man, "worth, it is said, 160,000 livres, or about 1,7000 a year."

On this subject, Voltaire speaks, in his autobiography, very sensibly. "I was not born rich, and it may be asked how I came to acquire wealth enough to live like a farmer-general; to which I answer, and I would have others make me their example, I had seen so many men of letters poor and despised, that I had long determined not to augment their number."

Involved in another political peril, in consequence of the publication of some bold verses in defence of a deceased comic actress, Madame Lecouvreur, who had been refused the rites of burial, Voltaire had reason to dread a third visit to the Bastille. He concealed himself at Rouen, under an English name, and busied himself in secretly printing his History of Charles XII. (of which the last edition had been seized), and the Philosophical Letters, for which he did not dare to ask a licence. In 1730, he brought on the stage his Brutus, and, shortly after, his Ériphyle, neither of which had much success; he was amply compensated, however, by the applause which waited on Zaïre, acted soon after. In the two or three following years, his fertile pen produced several other pieces, of which the Temple du Gout (1733) was the most remarkable. The severity of its criticism on the principal writers of France seemed little short of literary blasphemy, and literary bigotry carried its resentment so far as to beg the government to punish the author. The Epistle to Urania, which even Rousseau had condemned for its impiety, was surreptitiously printed, and gave new umbrage to the government. Voltaire scrupled

Voltaire, not to disavow the piece, and attributed it to the Abbé Chaulieu, who had been dead some years. The falsehood, like most of Voltaire's, deceived nobody. The publisher of the Philosophical Letters was imprisoned, the author menaced, and the work itself publicly burned by the hands of the executioner. Under these circumstances, it is not wonderful that Voltaire should have meditated flight, not only from Paris, but from France. From this last, he was deterred by his liaison with Madame du Châtelet, which lasted till the death of that lady. She was a singular woman, or rather man and woman both in one; that is, she united all the strength of a masculine intellect with all the vivacity and passionate sensibility of a woman's nature. She had received an education proper to a man, and profited by it as perhaps no other woman of her time could have done. She understood Latin; she successfully prosecuted geometry and metaphysics, translated Newton, studied Leibnitz, and, on one occasion, only just failed of winning a prize offered by the Academy of Sciences.

It was once supposed that the attachment of Voltaire to this lady, whose husband was living, was purely Platonic; "but," as M. Auger says, "it would be ridiculous now to dissemble that Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet were lovers."

Both were weary of the fashionable circles, where "they lost time, money, and health," and this, together with the dangers which gathered round Voltaire, suggested the thought of retiring to Cirey, an estate situated on the confines of Champagne and Lorraine. In that solitude, they studied together in such constant communion, that they seemed for a time to exchange tastes; Madame du Châtelet, in spite of her geometry and metaphysics, addicted herself to the polite literature of England and Italy, the languages of which she learned from Voltaire, and according to his account, with miraculous facility: while Voltaire, on the other hand, was so inoculated with her love of science, as to beguile himself for a moment, in spite of his very nature, into the notion that he had a genuine penchant for it, and that it was his true vocation. They worked together at the Éléments de la Philosophie de Newton; they competed, once conjointly and once as rivals, for prizes proposed by the Academy of Sciences. In the first case, both were compelled to yield to the illustrious Euler; in the second, Voltaire, who defended Newton against Leibnitz, beat his mistress, who defended Leibnitz against Newton.

This excursion into science seems to have satisfied Voltaire, and he returned to literature, which he forsook no more. At Cirey he composed Alzire, Zulime, Mahomet, Merope, and L'Enfant Prodigue; finished the Discours sur l'Homme; commenced Le Siècle de Louis XIV.; and collected the materials for his Essais sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations. It was there also, says M. Auger, "that he completed that too famous poem which religion, morals, and patriotism will ever condemn; which could not increase his renown; which tormented his life; which dishonours his memory." It was there, too, that he received the first advances from Prince Frederick of Prussia, which paved the way for that strange episode in the life of these two singular men, which made both of them at once the wonder and the laughingstock of Europe.

About this time, 1738, Voltaire was incessantly harassed by the attacks of Desfontaines, who, in reply to Voltaire's Preservatif, an anonymous piece, issued his Voltaireomanie, likewise anonymous. "No attack," says the writer just cited, "ever moved Voltaire so much. His rage was unbounded, and even his health was affected by the violence of his passions." This miserable controversy was at length terminated by a disavowal obtained from Desfontaines by the intervention of the police,—a sort of rhetoric to which that worthy would yield anything, and such a trifle as truth most readily of all. While Voltaire was involved in these scandalous squabbles, Madame du Châtelet watched over him with the tenderest assiduity, and strove with all a woman's address and affection to mitigate the evils which she could not prevent. But when no foreign quarrel was in hand, they were but too apt to quarrel with one another. So ungovernable were the passions of both, that the repose of Cirey was by no means free from storms; violent alterations often occurred between Voltaire and his "divine Emilie." From the Letters of Madame de Graffigny, it sufficiently appears that Cirey was not the serene abode of philosophy which it was sometimes thought to be, and that habit and necessity, still more than affection, continued to link this strange couple together.¹ After many years, it was broken by an event which formed but too natural a termination to such an union. The lady had an intrigue with M. de St Lambert whilst she and Voltaire were visiting at the court of King Stanislas at Lorraine. She gave birth to a child, and died a few days after.

Voltaire, in 1746, was admitted a member of the Academy, an honour to which he had long aspired, and for which he had been twice an unsuccessful candidate. His inaugural discourse was much admired.

Shortly after, not to mention other quarrels in which he was incessantly embroiled, began Voltaire's miserable squabble with Crebillon, a competitor for dramatic honours quite unworthy of entering the lists with the author of Zaïre. Nevertheless, angry at the preference given to this rival by aid of court intrigue, he eagerly engaged in an emulous strife for superiority, and rapidly poured forth a series of tragedies on subjects similar to those treated by Crebillon. Even, if a little better than those of Crebillon, they were, as might be expected from the circumstances under which they were produced, unworthy of Voltaire, and they were received by the public with mortifying coldness.²

During the life of Madame du Châtelet, Voltaire refused to listen to the invitations of Frederick to visit his court and become his Mentor. At the lady's death, Voltaire listened, but hesitated; he was now between fifty and sixty, and dreaded the effect of the climate on his health. But Frederick took him on the side of his vanity, and effectually timed him. Some indifferent verses, in which his majesty had praised Arnaud as "the rising sun," in contrast with the "setting" Voltaire, were shown to the latter, of course on purpose. He was in bed. He sprang up in a rage, raved, danced about the room in his shirt, and called for post-horses. "Il faut," he said, "que le Roi de Prusse apprenne que je ne me couche pas encore."³ It was not his first or second interview with Frederick. In 1743, at the instance of the Duchess of Chateauroux, when France

¹ "An ardent, aerial, gracefully predominant, and in the end somewhat termagant female figure, the divine Emilie. Her temper, radiant rather than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion; nor was M. de Voltaire the least of a Job if you came athwart him the wrong way." (Carlyle.)

² In 1745 an amusing incident occurred in connection with the representation of his opera entitled, Le Temple de la Gloire, a species of composition in which he never excelled, and in which he here failed completely. But as his vanity seldom let him know when he had failed, he had the audacity to approach the royal box after the representation, and to ask, "Is Trojan pleased?" The king, less flattered with the comparison than annoyed with the familiarity, gave him no answer. About the same time he produced his ballet entitled Princesse de Navarre, an absurd medley of the heroic and the comic, of pathos and burlesque; and the Poem of Fontenoy, written to order, and therefore of course as dull as any laureate ode.

³ A ludicrous account of this rise of Frederick is given in Marmontel's Mémoires.

Voltaire seemed likely to be threatened by the conjoint hostility of England and Austria, Voltaire was selected to undertake a secret mission to Frederick, the issue of which Lord Macaulay has so amusingly characterised. "Voltaire was received with every mark of respect and friendship, was lodged in the palace, and had a seat daily at the royal table. The negotiation was of an extraordinary description. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than the conferences which took place between the first literary man and the first practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness had induced to exchange parts. The great poet would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the great king of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put into his majesty's hands a paper on the state of Europe, and received it back with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret, they both laughed at each other. Voltaire did not spare the king's poems, and the king has left on record his opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy. 'He had no credentials,' says Frederick, 'and the whole mission was a joke, a mere farce.'"

It was in 1750 that Voltaire took up his abode at Frederick's court, and his visit extended over three years. Of the scenes, at once most humiliating and most grotesque, to which it gave rise, we have no space to speak in detail. The friendship began in visionary raptures, and ended in real and lasting disgust. Nor could it be otherwise. True friendship was never founded on vanity and heartlessness, and these two great men possessed these faults in perhaps as large a measure as is compatible with human limitations. The flatteries with which Voltaire was received, his sumptuous lodgings, his offices, his titles, and his salary, did not long conceal from him that the position which he was invited to occupy was at best but a splendid slavery. If he indulged the freedom to which he was invited, and exhibited the petulant humour which was inseparable from his nature whether permitted or not, he soon found that he must, and did, give offence; while Frederick, who affected, in the literary coterie of which he was the centre, to lay aside the king, and to dispense with all ceremony, was equally offended whether they took him at his word or not. If they did not, he treated them with insolent sarcasm for their servile bearing; if they did, with equal sarcasm for their presumption. Thus Voltaire, like all the rest, was much in the condition of a monkey playing with a bear. At best it was dangerous sport in which a hug might at any moment be fatal.

Add to all this, the jealousies of the many little minds which envied Voltaire's superiority and the king's favour; Voltaire's irascible temperament, and Frederick's heredi-

tary love of plugging, and not least, the loss of all mutual esteem which must have followed from seeing each other without a mask, and we cannot wonder that the friendship was soon dissolved.

Some of the incidents of the quarrel, such, for example as Voltaire's squabble with Maupertuis, the president of Frederick's little academy; his most comic squib against that worthy, entitled Diatribes du Docteur Akakia; Frederick's hearty laugh over it in private, while he earnestly pleaded for its suppression; Voltaire's pretended complaisance, while he reserved a copy, which soon appeared in print, and covered the luckless president with ridicule; the mutual trickeries by which Voltaire sought to get away, and Frederick sought to keep him; above all, when he did get away, the scenes at Frankfort, where the king's messenger demanded the restoration of that volume of the Royal Poësie which Voltaire was charged with having nefariously carried off, and the poet's humiliating detention till it was recovered from Leipzig, where he had left the precious treasure;—these things, as detailed in Voltaire's bitter autobiography, form one of the strangest tragi-comedies in the world; but it is also pitiable to think how much misery the vanity and malevolence of this singular pair must have inflicted on both. In all their correspondence of after years the traces are seen; it is obvious that the wounds with which they then pierced one another never kindly healed.

One alleged insult of Frederick, of course whispered to Voltaire, seems to have especially angered him. Frederick had said to some envious detractor of Voltaire: "Leave him alone. We squeeze an orange, and when we have sucked the juice, throw away the peel." "After this," says Voltaire in his Memoirs, which are full of stinging sarcasms against his royal friend, "I resolved to take all possible care of the peel." On the other hand, Voltaire's sayings, reported with an equally punctual kindness, must have stung Frederick to the quick. "See," said he one day, when Frederick had sent him a large quantity of his indifferent verse to be corrected, "see what a quantity of dirty linen he has sent me to wash." Contempt, especially from affected friendship, is the last thing that human nature can forgive; and the king and Voltaire had inflicted on each other contempt enough to insure a lifelong remembrance.

The details, and probably much more than the details, of this strange episode in his life are given in Voltaire's Memoirs. A most graphic sketch of the principal incidents will also be found in the Essay on Frederick the Great by the late lamented Lord Macaulay.¹

At length Voltaire was free, and after short visits to

¹ The darker representations of Frederick in Voltaire's Autobiography are to be read with distrust, and some of his imputations would not believe of any man without far better proofs than Voltaire's word.—Enough is authentically known of both, nay, is disclosed in their own characters, as self-delineated in their voluminous correspondence, to prove that the only cordial feeling they could have had must have been admiration of each other's genius, for neither had virtue enough for true friendship. Meantime, it is most significant of Voltaire's character, that at the very time he was penning the most contemptuous satire perhaps ever written, on his "Solemon," as he calls Frederick, he was then, and up to the close of his life, engaged in a correspondence, in which the most ardent expressions of attachment, and the most fulsome adulation, are continually interchanged between the two. It shows Voltaire to be a monster of insincerity. It is true that sometimes the old wounds visibly fester, as when Voltaire says, April 1760, "Vous m'avez fait assez de mal, vous m'avez broüillé pour jamais avec le roi de France; vous m'avez fait perdre mes emplois et mes pensions, vous m'avez maltraité à Frankfort, moi, et une femme innocente, une femme considérée, qui a été traînée dans la boue, et mise en prison; et ensuite, en m'honorant des vos lettres, vous corrompez la douceur de cette consolation, par des reproches amers." "La femme innocente" is, of course, Madame Denis; and in his letter of the 12th of May, the king replies characteristically enough—"Votre conduite n'eût été tolérée par aucun philosophe. . . . I have pardoned all, and even wish to forget all. But if you had not had to do with a fool in love with your genius, you would not have got off so well. . . . Be sure of that, and moreover that I do not intend to speak any more of that niece of yours, of whom I am tired enough (qui m'ennuie), and who, at least, has no such merits as cover her uncle's faults. One speaks of the servant-maid of Mollère, but depend upon it no one will speak of the niece of Voltaire." Lord Macaulay, who has condensed, in his lively way, a sentence or two from these letters, says of the early correspondence, that it may be studied with advantage by those who wish to become proficient in the ignoble art of flattery. Sometimes, no doubt, compliments are turned with great elegance, and want nothing but a little truth to recommend them; but in general, it must be confessed that the adulation is so gross and fulsome that nothing but an ostrich stomach could digest it. So it continued to the last. Thus writes Frederick in 1770:—"If ever knowledge should flourish again amongst the Greeks, they will be jealous that a Frenchman, by his Hécatombe, has surpassed Homer, has carried away the bell from Sophocles, has rivalled Thucydides, and has left far behind him Plato, Aristotle, and the whole school of the Porch." Nor is Voltaire a whit behind:—"I have ever," says he, "at my heart the irreparable evil which Maupertuis has done me; I shall ever think of the calumny about 'the dirty linen sent to the washerwoman,' that insipid calumny which was mortal to me, with a sorrow which will poison my last days. But all that D'Alembert tells me of your Majesty's goodness is a balm for my wounds

Voltaire. Strasburg, Colmar, the abbey of Senones, where he met with Calmet, who chivalrously attempted his conversion; to Plombières, where he went to visit M. d'Argental; to Colmar again; he at length, on finding that his presence at Paris would not be agreeable to royalty, decided on living out of France. After residing sometime at Monnion, and sometime at Les Delices, he at length bought the estates of Tourney and Ferney, in Gex. He at first lived alternately at one and the other, but finally settled at Ferney. Here he spent the last twenty years of his life, and in circumstances which strangely contrasted with the previous portion of it. Hitherto he had seldom been long anywhere: a vagabond on the face of the earth, his past life was an image of his restless self. At Ferney he fixed, and his opulence enabled him to sustain the character of a lord of the soil.

In some respects he did credit to his position. Constitutionally good-natured, though his good-nature was capricious and fickle—generous also where he felt no enmities—he sought to promote, and to a considerable extent did promote, the material interests of his tenantry and neighbourhood. He improved the land; he encouraged agriculture; pulled down the wretched cabins of his tenants, and replaced them by pretty houses; he built himself the substantial chateau of Ferney, not forgetting to add to it, among other luxurious appurtenances, a little theatre; if indeed that, to one of his tastes and habits, did not seem rather a necessary than a luxury. Here sometimes actors from Paris came to grace the performance of his own plays. Strangest of all, he even rebuilt the church, at his own expense, and on a larger scale, though not without uttering many sarcasms and performing many pranks in the course of the operation, which gave dire offence to the clergy. But they might have looked for such things from so peculiar a church reformer.

His incessant activity of mind was by no means exhausted by his many new occupations of a practical nature; his study was still the place in which he was most often found, and composition, as it had ever been, his principal employment and delight. Neither did the constant visits he received prevent his devotion to study: very often he did not appear, but left the ladies of his household to do the honours for him; or, if he appeared, stayed only a very short time. In fact, unless he had used this freedom with visitors, they would soon have absorbed his entire time, for Ferney soon became a centre of attraction to all the wandering savans and litterateurs of Europe. It was, as M. Auger says, the holy city of philosophers, something like what Mecca is to Mussulmen; "it was necessary, at least once in one's life, to make a pilgrimage there."

Neither here nor anywhere else could Voltaire have lived without getting embroiled in discreditable quarrels. Amongst these, that which sprang out of his pious zeal for restoring the ruinous church of Ferney was not the least; and, generally, the singular manner in which this curious patron of the parish conducted himself involved him in perpetual broils with his curé, and sometimes even with his bishop. The indecorous liberties which he took, and especially the impiety with which he trifled with an old wooden cross, at length caused the bishop to denounce him to the government. On one occasion he resorted to a strange method of proving his loyalty and devotion. He wished, he said, to fulfil his duties as a Christian, as an officer of the king, and as lord of the parish, and partook of the communion at the church at Ferney. In 1769, learning that the bishop of Annecy had forbidden every priest in

his diocese to confess him, to absolve him, or to admit him to the communion, he betook himself to bed, declared himself to be sick and dying, and terrified a capuchin into giving him absolution and administering the Eucharist, threatening, in case of refusal, to complain to the parliament. Having received the communion in his chamber, he caused a notary, on the spot, to draw up a procès-verbal of the facts. These acts were regarded by the philosophers of Paris as pusillanimous "complaints," and by religious men as a sacrilegious farce. Both were right. It would be unjust to say that Voltaire wanted courage, for he sometimes gave proofs of the contrary; but no man ever had less of the spirit of a martyr. He never lost any advantage, or robbed himself of any revenge, which such a trifling thing as a lie or an act of hypocrisy could procure for him.

It was at Ferney that his infidelity displayed itself with the greatest virulence—became, in fact, a passion. It was the blind zeal of an iconoclast. "While he was at Paris, or retained the hope of returning thither," says a writer in the Biographie Universelle, "his impiety manifested itself only at intervals; he used a little management, and put on, sometimes, the veil of pretended doubt, sometimes the mask of a thoughtless pleasantry. When he saw himself, as it were, for ever exiled from the capital, his infidelity became systematic, positive, persevering, and furious."

To this many causes contributed. He felt himself safer; he lived on the frontiers of three independent states, into any one of which he might slip if he gave umbrage to either of the others; and with all his infidelity, there was one precept of the Gospel which, having no genius for martyrdom, he constantly practised: "If they persecuted him in one city, he fled to another." One of these little states, the republic of Geneva—of which he drolly said, "that if he but shook his wig, the powder would cover its territory"—was not loved by him, and he preferred to live just out of it; but in the event of a hard chase, the fox could, at any rate, take earth there. Thus happily located, his property also was, for the most part, so invested that, wherever he removed, his income was secure. Then, again, his admirers were numerous and ardent almost everywhere, and thousands who hated his sentiments were yet willing to show indulgence to his genius. His old age, too, the privileges of which, it has been well said, he most punctiliously exacted of others, though he paid no respect to it himself, was another protection; which was still strengthened by his own constant parade of his physical sufferings, and perpetual prophecies of his approaching death. For many years before his death, he was, according to his own account, always dying.

Other securities less creditable he did not hesitate to avail himself of whenever it was necessary. His most offensive brochures, which were continually issuing from the press, he did not scruple to palm off under names sometimes fictitious, sometimes real but not his own—sometimes even under those of the dead; nay, he did not scruple to disavow, if need be with solemn oaths, anything which it might be inconvenient to father. It is true, that these artifices deceived no one; and perhaps, says the writer in the Biographie Universelle, his vanity would have been vexed if any one had been deceived. Be this as it may, in this sheltered spot, he emptied the full quiver of his bitterness and hatred against religion, in one incessant volley. Nor did he scruple to poison the arrows. "Gross invective," says M. Auger, "cynical buffoonery, garbling and falsification, defamation and calumny, all appeared to

so powerful, that I reprove myself for that sorrow which still pursues me. Pardon a man who never had any other ambition than that of living and dying near you, and whose attachment is of more than thirty years' standing." The effrontery of Voltaire in representing the celebrated piece of petulance as a calumny, whereas it authenticates itself to be Voltaire's, is only equalled by the baseness of his adulation.

Voltaire. him legitimate. . . . His most indulgent friends have agreed to mourn over the shameful excesses into which he was carried against those who essayed to vindicate Revelation or morality, outraged by him in twenty different works.¹ His abhorrence of everything which bore the semblance of Christianity became more intense and indiscriminating every day. All forms of religion at last became identified in his mind with superstition; Christianity was but another name for priestcraft, and was presumed to be inimical to the rights, the freedom, and the reason of mankind. No wonder that, in these transports of an infidel bigotry (for such it really was), the scoffing, mocking tone became more and more bitter.

One may make some excuse for him from the corruptions of the system around him, the flagrant hypocrisies with which men, often as unbelieving as himself, turned Christianity into a gainful superstition; the wrongs and persecutions he had himself endured; and the provocation which he received from controvertists who, shameless as himself, employed against him arts as shameless as his own. Be this as it may, the writings of Voltaire undoubtedly exhibit more intense, bitter, gratuitous mockery of the Bible, and indeed of almost everything held sacred among men, than probably those of any other writer since the Christian era.

In justice, it must be said, that it was at Ferney also that Voltaire exhibited the traits and performed the actions which posterity now contemplates with most pleasure. They show like streaks of light in a dark cloud. It was here that he received under his protection the orphan descendant of the great Corneille, with the graceful welcome—"That he felt as an old soldier who had the child of his general consigned to him." He adopted her, had her carefully educated, married her to a young gentleman of good family, and dowered her, when she married, with the profits of his own editorial labours on her ancestor's works.

It was here, too, that he performed those real services in behalf of religious liberty which it is impossible to record without respect. His first considerable achievement was in aid of the Calvinist family of John Calas, who had just suffered, at Toulouse, the frightful punishment of being broken on the wheel, on the charge of having murdered his son, in order to prevent his conversion to Catholicism. Voltaire refused to believe in the possibility of the crime, and strained all his energies to procure such redress as was still possible. He freely employed his pen, his purse, and his influence in this good cause; he inflamed the zeal of the apathetic public, hired the eloquence of advocates, and, above all, incessantly used his own. The cause was rejudged, the sentence reversed, the memory of Calas vindicated; and his widow and children, whom bigotry had condemned to infamy and their property to confiscation, were reinstated in public opinion, and consoled with marks of the royal favour. Though this was the most remarkable of Voltaire's triumphs in this way, it was by no means a solitary one. His success on this occasion seemed to produce an impression, to employ a metaphor of his biographers, that he was a sort of knight-errant, whose mission it was to champion the oppressed and to redress the wrongs of public justice; its victims everywhere appealed to him, and,

it must be allowed, that they did not appeal in vain. Another Protestant, Sirven, had been condemned to the same punishment as Calas, and for a similar crime. His daughter had been shut up in a convent in the hope of her conversion. She escaped, and threw herself into a well; the father was accused of having drowned her, and escaped execution only by flight. Voltaire taxed all his energies in his defence, persevered through many years of resistance or apathy on the part of the authorities, and secured at last Sirven's acquittal. Other instances, equally honourable to him, might be mentioned. It is true, indeed, that the applause which attended his efforts was enormous, and must have given one so sensitive to praise intense gratification; but there is no reason to doubt that he sincerely hated oppression, and loved freedom—almost the only pure and lofty sentiment which he consistently cherished. It is only to be regretted that in his writings on this, as on all other subjects, he confounds religion with superstition, and Christianity with priestcraft. It is profoundly to be deplored that the abominable cruelties which he opposed, as well as the gross corruptions of the system which sanctioned them, should have given his prejudices, exasperated by the long contest, a seeming justification. It must be pleaded as a palliation of the embittered tone which pervades his later writings; but it can form no sufficient apology. He had only to look into the New Testament to see that if Christ's commands are obeyed, persecution is impossible, and that it must be not only a monstrous perversion, but an absolute boulevardement of the meaning of the Gospel which pretends to sanction it.²

The end was approaching. Madame Denis, who, ennuyée with the solitude of Ferney, and yearning, as only a Frenchwoman and an ancient coquette could, for the dissipations of Paris and of her vanished youth, strove with all her art to induce Voltaire to pay the capital a visit. She succeeded (1778).

The clergy and the court were by no means so delighted as Madame Denis; they started as at an apparition; but the philosophers and the litterateurs, and plenty of people of rank and fashion, were all in a flutter of delight. The fame of his works, his long exile, the renown of his late retreat, his very age, all made his visit a triumph, which was turned, however, into a veritable funeral procession. It is hardly a figure to say, that he died, stifled with the incense and worn out with the flatteries of that last visit. It is true that, at eighty-four, nothing could have kept the dying flame long alive: when a taper is just expiring, an idle moth's wing can flap it out; and even so, the faint spark of life was extinguished by the gay flutter of his Parisian parasites. The number of visits he received and returned, the hurry and excitement of thus living in a crowd, the exhaustion consequent on his efforts to entertain and be brilliant at eighty-four, brought on a severe hemorrhage and his life was in danger. Some chivalrous ecclesiastics from the first moment of his visit to Paris, had hardly proposed to themselves the achievement of his conversion; among them one or two who, if truth be spoken, gave but indifferent proof of being converted themselves. However, the Abbé Gautier and the Curé of St Sulpice were

¹ It is the indiscriminate attack of Voltaire upon all sorts of opinions, true and false, good and evil, which perhaps most strikes one in his career. In his case "the half would have been more than the whole." No doubt many of the things he assailed were hideous enough, and deserved to perish; it would have been sad if such a tempest as he helped to raise, and which spent its violence in the next generation, had not killed some noxious insects, and left the atmosphere clearer. The misfortune was, that Voltaire's influence was simply destructive. "No human teacher," says Lord Macaulay, "ever left behind him so vast and terrible a wreck of truths and falsehoods, of things noble and things base, of things useful and things pernicious." Lord Byron has expressed the same trait in Voltaire by a happy metaphor—

"He multiplied himself among mankind,
The Proteus of their talents; but his own
Breathed most in ridicule; which, as the wind
Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,
Now to overthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne."

Voltaire. the principal and among the most respectable. The former, on hearing of Voltaire's illness, hastened to his octogenarian catechumen. The affair was characteristic. Voltaire, thinking himself in danger said, he did not wish his body "to be cast to the vultures," and bargained with the Abbé Gauthier, to whom he committed it, for the rites of sepulture, if nothing else. The preliminaries for duly receiving such a deposit were soon settled; Voltaire had no objection at all to the little ceremonies proper to the occasion. He made a declaration that he wished to die in the Catholic religion in which he had been born, asked pardon of God and the church for the offences he had committed against them, and received absolution. The Curé of St Sulpice complained that he had not been called to so edifying a scene. Voltaire wrote a complimentary letter, full of regard for his ministry and his virtues, and the latter replied in a style equally full of courtesy and charity. But the hemorrhage ceased, Voltaire got better, and the penitent "turned from the church to the theatre." On the day of the sixth representation of his Irene, which had been applauded, not for its own sake (for it was the last cracked strain of his aged muse), but in compliment to its author, Voltaire received from crowds, drunk with a grotesque enthusiasm, a tawdry homage, which only vanity like his could at such an age have enjoyed. After having been the admired and admiring spectator of his own play, which he vaingloriously thought was a new triumph of his genius, his bust was placed on the stage and crowned by the actors! Amidst the shouts and in the arms of the people, the decrepit object of this anticipatory apotheosis was borne to his coach; the crowds followed him to his hotel, rending the air with his name and the titles of his principal works, and ending with that of the Pucelle. On arriving at his hotel, Voltaire turned to the crowd and exclaimed, "My friends, you will stifle me with roses." Perhaps only vanity in its dotage would have been content to apply so delicate a metaphor to such gross perfume, but there is sober truth in describing the suffocating effects.

"He begs their flattery with his latest breath,
And, smothered in't at last, is praised to death."

On the same day on which he passed through this exciting scene, he had sufficiently taxed the strength and spirits of an old man of eighty-four by being present at a long sitting of the academy, where he had received similar, but less tumultuous honours, from the representatives of science and literature. Such scenes as these, combined with some efforts at literary work, and his immoderate recourse to coffee, brought on a fit of dysuria, a complaint from which he had previously suffered. He took opium to relieve his pangs, and, it is said, took too much; it probably hastened his death, which occurred May 30, 1778.

A deep cloud rests on the last hours of Voltaire,—so various and so contradictory are the accounts which enemies and friends have transmitted to us, and so hopeless the imbroglio of doubts which those differences have occasioned. Some say he died in agonies of remorse and terror; some that he made an edifying confession, and died reconciled to the church; some that he persisted in his hardihood of unbelief to the last. We are content to let the cloud rest upon the scene without any attempt to pierce it. Indeed, on any hypothesis, we can learn nothing worth knowing. If he made confession and received absolution and the viaticum, what value can be attached to such things when he had already acted a similar part in the very wantonness of profanity, and for purposes the most frivolous? If he persisted in his unbelief, it is only what multitudes of a less confirmed and obdurate scepticism, have done before him. It is certain that such a life could not have

yielded, in the retrospect, any solid satisfaction, or any thing that could naturally tend to disarm the terrors of that hour; but it does not follow that Voltaire felt them. In fact, those who would draw omens of the truth of this or that system of belief or unbelief from the phenomena of a death-bed, have often laid on them a stress which is by no means justified. Many an abbé of Voltaire's time, quite as bad as Voltaire, and worse in one respect, that they added hypocrisy to a flagitious life, passed away very calmly; while many a man of exemplary and undoubted goodness—Cowper, for example—has died in frightful agonies of despair. In truth, not only cannot the death of an individual justify us in pronouncing confidently for or against any system of opinion, but not even his life will. Such argument is in effect two-edged. As to the general tendencies of systems, when really acted on, to produce moral effects in life, and peace or dismay in death, we may see enough to justify ample confidence in our conclusions. But a solitary instance here and there may seemingly fail to verify them. That they, for example, who scoff at all notions of a moral government of the world and a future retribution; who believe that conscience is but the voice of self-interest; who avowedly see neither crime nor shame in the unrestrained indulgence of sensual passions, and proclaim that it is superstitious to dread the consequences, are less likely to be honest, temperate, or chaste, than those of opposite creeds, we should hold it absurd to deny, and should not care to argue with any one who did. And at certain epochs, as in our own country in the seventeenth, and in France in the eighteenth century, we may see the influence of such a creed exemplified on a sufficient scale to demonstrate its sinister effects on practical morals. But the case of individuals proves little, or rather nothing; for it cuts both ways. There are too many examples of men who have held perfectly orthodox views, who yet have been every whit as bad as those who abjured them; and, on the other hand, some who have denied them, have, under the influence of a cold temperament, prudential motives, and purely secular interests, been, in their outward life, so much better than Voltaire that they may well shame many professed Christians.

It was once the fashion to speak of Voltaire as an universal genius; as not only having made incursions into all the realms of science and literature, but as having conquered and appropriated them; as a profound philosopher, an original thinker, a poet worthy to rank with the first names, whether of epic or dramatic renown; as a great historical writer, whose comprehensive knowledge of facts was only equalled by the sagacity with which he philosophized upon them. Such is the vein of exaggeration which pervades his life by Condorcet; in fact, rather an eulogy than a life, and (which is saying a great deal) as indiscriminate and absurd in its flatteries as any of the panegyrics ever pronounced before the French Academy. One word will show the infamy of adulation to which he stoops: he condescends to palliate, on the whole, the tendency even of Pucelle, on the ground that the victims of the sensuality there so shamelessly pandered to, may possibly be fortified against all superstitious fears of the consequences!

The estimate of such eulogists of Voltaire's genius, as at once "universal and profound" (wonderfully versatile and active it really was), is simply ridiculous. His whole mind must have been projected on a far greater scale really to master the many branches of science and literature which he essayed. "He has not bequeathed to us," says the great critic whom we have already twice cited, "a single doctrine to be called by his name, not a single addition to our stock of knowledge."¹

¹ Macaulay justly says, that "what Burke said of the Constituent Assembly was true of this its great forerunner; Voltaire could not

Voltaire. It may be added, that none of his books, even in the branches of composition in which he most excelled, are master-pieces, or entitled to be placed in the first rank. It is well remarked by the above critic, when speaking of the youthful Frederick's extravagant admiration of Voltaire, and ascribing it to his defective education, that "had Frederick been able to read Homer and Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admiration of the Henriade would prove that he was utterly destitute of the power of discerning what is excellent in art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or Shakespeare, we should have expected him to appreciate Zaire more justly. Had he been able to study Thucydides and Tacitus, in the original Greek and Latin, he would have known that there were heights in the eloquence of history far beyond the reach of the author of the Life of Charles the Twelfth." But though not entitled to the first rank in any of the great branches of composition he attempted, it is certainly wonderful that he should have achieved fame in so many, and that he should have passed with so much versatility from one species of literary labour to another. It is not surprising that he had the usual lot of the pentathlete, and, excelling in many branches, failed of the highest excellence in all. Nor, even had his genius been more specifically fitted for a single sphere, could he have done himself full justice, or attained the excellence of which he was really capable; for he was writing perpetually, and the only wonder is, that he did not much oftener fall below mediocrity. No man ever left, as he did, fourscore volumes behind him, or even half the number, without leaving a great deal of rubbish in them. Chef d'œuvres, where there is the genius to produce them, can be the result only of patient toil and prolonged meditation, and they will, therefore, be few. Such voluminous works as Voltaire's must be marked not only by haste and frequent common-place, but by repetitions; Voltaire, in fact, had written all his works long before he had got to the end of his eighty volumes; it is well remarked by Madame Necker, "that he had extracted from his genius everything of which it was susceptible; like a sponge, he had drained it to the last drop."

But without claiming for Voltaire's genius the epithets either of "universal" or "profound," it had qualities, no doubt, which justly challenge our wonder. His wit was enormous; but though this was his predominant faculty, perhaps the qualities which most strike us are his marvellous mobility and versatility. He played in rapid alternation almost all literary parts, some with great éclat, most with more than average success, and passed from one to the other—from verse to prose, from tragedy to burlesque, from history to fiction—with astonishing facility. His restless activity demanded unceasing employment, and his versatility prompted to the most various kinds of it. He himself says that he "was born with the love of labour,"

and it is true; though, had he not varied his employment as he did, we question whether this would have been so marked a trait of his character. Indeed, such industry has rarely been conjoined with such versatility.

The characteristics of intellect we have indicated, are the very reverse of those which distinguish a great philosopher; and assuredly Voltaire was none. Of depth or subtlety of speculation; of patient or comprehensive thought; of judicial candour or calmness in the survey of evidence; of a genius for philosophy, properly so called, there are few traces in Voltaire's writings. He has left little or nothing that can be called original or novel in speculation; his materials, especially in his philosophical and theological writings are, for the most part, second-hand. He knew, however, how to make use of the knowledge he had, as well of his readers' ignorance, and manages to parade sciolism with the airs of erudition. Had he been as accurate and comprehensive as he was lively, his graces of style would have made him, if not a great philosopher, one of the best exponents of the philosophy of others the world ever saw. Knowledge varied and extensive but neither deep nor accurate, brilliant superficiality, a never tiring vivacity of wit and humour, which in him were alone creative faculties, chiefly characterise him. These, combined with great felicity of style, make him one of the most vivacious of writers. He has often all the gravest faults with which an author can be chargeable—shallowness, impurity, grossness, disingenuousness, sophistry, scurrility, and contempt of truth; but one fault he has not—he is never dull. Open him where we will, he is always vivacious.

His incessant activity of mind, and his extreme love of labour, are both exemplified in the vast variety and voluminosity of his works. Though he led a life of unusual activity for an author—though it was full of movement and incident—he has left behind him no less than fourscore octavo volumes. Computed merely by their solid contents, as so many cubical feet of printed matter, the products of his mind were enormous. His correspondence alone, extending over fourteen or fifteen volumes (with the letters of D'Alembert and Frederick of Prussia to him, it fills eighteen), makes as much as the opera omnia of many considered rather voluminous authors.

The vivacity and activity of mind which so eminently distinguished his writings were as eminently displayed, we are told, in his conversation; so that, in fact, his whole life must have been a perpetual play of intellectual pyrotechny; he was a sort of catherine-wheel, whose incessant revolution was continually throwing off a shower of brilliant scintillations.¹

It is true, that to secure this perennial vivacity, he had, in addition to his great intellectual endowments, some other facilities for which he is more the object of wonder than of

build, he could only pull down; he was the very Vitruvius of ruin." It is freely admitted, that in his long war with all that had been previously revered among men, Voltaire often assaulted error as well as truth, superstition as well as religion, which indeed he never took the trouble to distinguish. It was only, perhaps, by such explosive and destructive forces that the dreadful social edifice, reared before Voltaire saw the light, could be destroyed; nor, perhaps, was it inexpedient that men should be taught, by the terrible experiments which a sci-dinast philosophy was commissioned to make, that genuine freedom is at least as incompatible with unbelief as with superstition. It is curious to see how Voltaire absolutely identifies oppression with religion, and how partial, accordingly, are his views of liberty itself. There is hardly a passage in his writings which shows that he had any true conceptions of, or sympathies with, civil and political liberty; nor is there any proof that he ever actively opposed any of the political abuses of his day, or strove, when he had opportunity, to enlighten in this matter the despotic princes with whom he came in contact. It has been well said by one of his biographers, that with such political views as his, it is by no means impossible that he might have been one of the first victims of that Revolution of which he was the unconscious pioneer.

¹ Many of his repartees were imitably ready. For example, he was once warmly eulogizing the celebrated Haller before a guest disposed to flatter. "Ah, sir," said the latter, "if M. Haller would but speak of your works as you speak of his." "Possibly," said Voltaire, "we are both mistaken." Nevertheless, it is said he was once completely discomfited by Young, the author of the Night Thought. Voltaire—so the story goes—was deprecating the Paradise Lost, of which the subject was doubtless as distasteful as the poetry. He was particularly disposed to make game of the celebrated personifications of Death, Sin, and the Devil, as he has also done in his writings. Young, looking him steadily in the face, is said to have said,—

"Thou art so witty, wicked, and so thin,
Thou art at once the Devil, Death, and Sin."

Voltaire. envy. He did not suppress a sarcasm for a trifle, or allow modesty or severe truth to stand in the way of a piquant pleasantry. A brilliant paradox; a jest, though on the most solemn or sacred subject provided it was but clever and pointed; an effective sophism, though founded on the most egregious suppressio veri or perversio recti, carried the day against all idle scrupulous punctilios of decorum, equity, and charity. As old Thomas Fuller puts it, he would "have washed his hands in the baptismal font," and "drunk healths out of the church chalice." To use the language of the jockey, he rode light.

His powers of acquisition were very great; of his indefatigable industry we have already spoken. Both together unquestionably put him in possession of very multifarious, though, as we have said, by no means accurate knowledge. He easily retained what he had read, and had what many men of great genius have possessed—his English contemporary Johnson in particular—an art of gutting books, and appropriating what is best worth remembering, without a slow and equable perusal of every syllable. Such a gift is very valuable; but it is also a very dangerous one, and often leads to inaccuracies from which a more plodding and patient industry is exempt. In general, it may be said, that Voltaire read too many books, and on too many subjects, not to have all the superficiality which must ever attend the effort to acquire a quasi-encyclopaedic knowledge.

The mobility which characterized Voltaire's intellect characterized equally his moral temperament. His whole nature was restless as his mind. The aspen vibrating at every breath can alone symbolize his sensitiveness to every external impulse; the glancing of shot-silk, or the changes of the chamelion, can alone express the varying aspects of his mind under such impulses. In this respect he was a child all his days; and if he had had the simplicity and innocence of a child, nothing could have been more riant or delightful than the social character of Voltaire; and, indeed, these childlike qualities are represented as constituting, in his best moods, one of the great charms of his manner. Unhappily he was not only a child, but a spoiled child, or rather united all the variable humour and abandon of a child with all the irascibility and malice of a monkey. In grief or anger he had no more self-control (as has been well said) than a "petted child or an hysterical woman;" or than an untutored savage, who freely gives way to every emotion without check or stint. In anger especially (and he kindled as readily as phosphorus) he gesticulated, made grimaces, cursed, stamped, capered, and poured forth a torrent of words, or even tears, in the effort to express his turbulent emotions. The next moment he was all sunshine and laughter. His placability, however, was by no means uniform. Constitutionally, as we have said, good natured, his resentments were often as deep as they were vivid; against Rousseau, for example, his hatred was both intense and unquenchable.

Of Voltaire's rapid changes of mood we have two or three examples most graphically described in Marmontel's delightful memoirs. They cannot well be omitted in any sketch of this singular man. The first extract thus paints his demeanour after the death of Madame du Châtelet:—

"When I went to condole with him," says Marmontel, "on the death of Madame du Châtelet, his most beloved mistress, 'Come,' said he, on seeing me, 'Come and share my sorrow. I have lost my illustrious friend; I am in despair; I am inconsolable.'—I, to whom he had often said that she was like a fury that hunted his steps, and who knew, that in these disputes, they had more than once been at daggers drawn,—I let him weep, and seemed to sympathise with him. And there he was, exhausting language in the praises of that incomparable woman, and redoubling his tears and his sobs. At this moment arrives the intendant Chauvelin, who tells him some ridiculous story, and with him Voltaire is bursting

with laughter. I laughed too, as I went away, to see in this great man the facility of a child, in passing from one extreme to another in the passions that agitated him. One only was fixed in him, and, as it were, inherent in his soul; it was ambition and love of glory."¹

Thus did this unballasted soul roll and pitch under every wind and wave of life. Another example is given in Marmontel's description of his visit to Ferney:—

"Nothing can be more singular nor more original than the reception Voltaire gave us. He was in bed when we arrived. He extended to us his arms; he wept for joy as he embraced me; he embraced the son of his old friend, M. Gaulard, with the same emotion. 'You find me dying,' said he; 'do you come to restore me to life, or to receive my last sigh?' My companion was alarmed at this preface; but I, who had a hundred times heard Voltaire say that he was dying, gave Gaulard a gentle sign of encouragement; and, indeed, a moment afterwards, the dying man, making us sit down by his bedside, 'My dear friend,' said he, 'how happy I am to see you! particularly at this moment, when I have a man with me whom you will be charmed to hear. It is M. de l'Ecluse, the surgeon-dentist of the late king of Poland, now the lord of an estate near Montargis, and who has been pleased to come to repair the irreparable teeth of Madame Denis. He is a charming man; but don't you know him?' 'The only l'Ecluse that I know,' answered I, 'is an actor of the old comic opera-house.' 'Tis he, my friend,' 'tis he himself. If you know him you know the song of the Grinder, that he plays and sings so well.' And there was Voltaire instantly imitating l'Ecluse, and with his bare arms and sepulchral voice, playing the Grinder and singing the song. . . . We were bursting with laughter and he quite serious. 'I imitate him very ill,' said he, 'tis l'Ecluse that you must hear, and his song of the Spinner and that of the Position, and the quarrel of the apple-woman with Fad, it is truth itself. Oh you will be delighted! Go and speak to Madame Denis; I, ill as I am, will get up and dine with you. We'll eat some wild-fowl, and listen to M. de l'Ecluse. The pleasure of seeing you has suspended my ills, and I feel myself quite revived.'"²

The temper of Voltaire always irritable, and never controlled, became often ungovernable. On the most trivial affront it was apt to break out in demonstrations as ludicrous as they were violent. The incessant incense of flattery, which was ever fuming before him in the latter years of his life, aggravated this irritability by intensifying his vanity and amour-propre, and he became at last impatient of the slightest contradiction; all suavity as long as compliments were going, opposition put him into a fury.

Some of his displays of temper, as, for example, the rage in which he broke away from the dinner-table of the Marquis of Villette, at not finding his silver cup in the accustomed place; the sudden wrath with which he danced up to the astonished bookseller, Vanduren (who had sent in what he thought an unjust demand), struck him a blow, and then vanished without one word of explanation; the droll vehemence with which his own greed raved against the greed of Frederick, because that prince had refused to grant 1000 lous, to enable Voltaire to bring his niece Madame Denis with him, drily saying, "that he had not invited the lady;"—these, and many other examples, exhibit our philosopher in a ludicrous light.

The poetry of Voltaire—though, to much of his composition in verse, it is hardly less than profanity to apply the name—is now pretty justly estimated in France itself. His Henriade is admitted to be no epic worthy of ranking with the great master-pieces so called. His Pucelle deservedly covers his name with infamy. His other light poems, as well as his comedies, are generally allowed to be mediocre, to say nothing of the moral blemishes which disfigure them. His tragedies have all the faults of the French drama in general, and some of their own besides. But it is perhaps hardly possible for Englishmen to criticise fairly works conceived in a spirit so utterly antipodal to that which reigns amongst us. He who thought Shakespeare "an inspired barbarian," or "a savage not destitute of imagination," as he elsewhere expresses it, was hardly

¹ Mémoires de Marmontel, p. 381.

² Ibid., p. 381.

Voltaire, likely to satisfy us in his poetical theory. His rigorous adherence to the so-called Unities seems to English tastes pedantic formality. The finest passages are not free from strained sentiment and bombastic rant; rhetorical declamation is substituted for real energy and passion; the very language in which he writes, admirable though it be for prose, is, in English estimate, essentially unpoetical; and the tinkling rhyme and metre seem to transform the severe tragic muse into a dancing girl with castanets. Such compositions, subjected to English critical taste, will receive no better treatment than Voltaire has bestowed upon Shakespeare's, and certainly they cannot meet with worse. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with referring the reader to the discriminating, and, as it appears to us, judicious criticism, of Voltaire's poetic character inserted in the Biographie Universelle. On the Pucelle we make no remarks. In that loathsome work he has caricatured every truth and sentiment deserving of veneration or invested with dignity. Religion, morals, and patriotism are alike outraged. The soul of Voltaire was incapable of veneration; in this poem it would seem to be equally insusceptible of the sublime and beautiful. The most glorious traditions of his own country—traditions which, even if they had less historic truth in them than they have, every Frenchman with a spark of patriotism would cherish in the deepest feelings of his soul—Voltaire has treated with the same impartial ribaldry with which he has outraged religion and morals. It is, perhaps, well that he has done so; for it is a sufficient answer to his attacks on these last, that they proceed from one who revered nothing in the world when it came in competition with the indulgence of his prurient fancy, or his love of buffoonery. He who could write the Pucelle is not likely to prove a formidable opponent to any system of morals or religion, unless mankind should first lose their senses or their shame altogether.

The way in which he has masqueraded Joan of Arc before his countrymen may be faintly, and but faintly, conceived, by imagining an English author to select Alfred the Great as the subject of a burlesque poem like Hudibras. It is in vain that Voltaire pleads that he has imitated Ariosto. The grossness of Ariosto is decency itself compared with the impurities of Voltaire.

The prose of Voltaire in his best moods is admirable. For narrative and didactic purposes it is hardly possible to imagine a more perfect vehicle of thought. He was one of a long series of great French writers who, beginning with Descartes and Pascal, have given to the world inimitable specimens of prose style; concise yet clear; simple and easy, but vivid and elegant; sparing in ornament, but with much grace of diction and harmony of structure. Its charm is, that it seems the natural dress of the thoughts, adapts itself to all its movements with spontaneous flexibility, and is free from all mannerism.

It is not always, indeed, that Voltaire does his very best, and is sometimes careless enough; but in general he abounds in spontaneous grace and unlaboured felicities. Sometimes, and especially in his Philosophical Dictionary, there is an affectation of epigrammatic point,—of an oracular brevity designed to suggest more than is expressed, but by no means always suggesting it.¹ Voltaire's manner, in such cases, looks like an unsuccessful imitation of that of Pascal in his Pensées. But in Pascal this suggestive manner is suggestive; it is no inexpressive mask, but an animated countenance, which speaks though silent.

Of Voltaire's voluminous prose works it is impossible to speak in detail. The life of the heroic madman of Sweden

will always be read with interest from the clearness and elegance of the narrative, and the exciting romance of the adventure. The Life of Peter the Great is but a sketch. It is not without reason that one of his biographers regrets that Voltaire did not produce a more elaborate work on the reign of the great founder of the Russian empire; a subject of far more intrinsic interest than the brilliant meteoric career of the Swedish conqueror. Yet it may be doubted whether Voltaire's powers were adequate to the true philosophical treatment of such a subject. His Essais sur les mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations, and Le Siècle de Louis XIV. et Louis XV., are the principal contributions of Voltaire to history. Though they may be superficial, if measured by the requirements of the modern spirit of severe historical research, first adequately exemplified by Gibbon, Voltaire certainly acquitted himself in this respect better than the generality of the historical writers of his time, while the graces of his style and, not seldom, the originality and comprehensiveness of his views will always secure readers. His philosophical tales are a brilliant reflection of all the powers of his mind, and, it must be added, of all the vices of his heart; of his wit and fancy, his invention, his ease, his elegance, but also of his cynical humour, his buffoonery, and his grossiereté. He had powers which eminently fitted him to excel in this species of composition, and he might have produced essays as full of innocent pleasantry as those of Addison. But there is not one which is not tarnished by some offence to modesty and virtue; not one which does not bear witness to the essential impurity of his mind; not one which is not deformed by polluting images. Even that exquisite little tale, Micromégas, the purely philosophical character of which would seem to render it impossible to introduce such offensive matter, is not free from it. Though it consists of little more than a couple of sheets, even this little piece must be expurgated before it could be read entire to modest ears. The impurities of many writers appear as blotches and blains, breaking out here and there; in Shakespeare, for example, whose indecency Voltaire modestly reproves. The impurity of Voltaire is a disease of the blood, and infiltrates every vein and artery with its diffusive malignity.

Much superfluous terror for the fate of Christianity was once occasioned by the writings of Voltaire and that host of sceptical writers of whom he was the Corypheus. It is sufficient to ask, at this distance of time, whether their works or the Bible be nearer oblivion,—whether they or it be most read? Is Christianity less powerful than when they commenced their crusade against it? Have they succeeded in diminishing the world's veneration for the Book they hated? of checking its translation or diffusion? of making the nations who then professed Christianity renounce it? Nothing of the kind: their indiscriminate assaults on the fabric of Christianity have had the effect, indeed, of shaking down some ruinous turrets, of exploding some pernicious superstitions and abuses, and it would have been well if they had destroyed more; but as to Christianity itself—the religion of the Bible—their assaults on it only roused the slumbering zeal of its defenders and champions. Never since the apostolic age has this religion been more energetic than since the reaction against the great sceptical attacks of the middle and close of the last century. The nations that professed Christianity then profess it still, and generally with somewhat more enlightened faith in it and wiser love for it than they cherished then; partly, no doubt, (let us candidly acknowledge it),

¹ Thus he closes one of his articles with the enigmatical words:—"Oh much admired Plato, I fear that thou hast told us nothing but fables, that thou hast spoken only as a sophist. Thou hast done more mischief than thou art aware of. 'How so?' you will ask. I will not tell you."

Voltaire. owing to the hostile criticism of those who would fain have destroyed it altogether. The Bible speaks at this day in a hundred more languages than it spoke then, while cobwebs are already gathering over the greater part of the sceptical literature of the last century. The mass of it is fast being conveyed, like that of preceding sceptical epochs, to the dust of the upper shelf; or if, as in the case of Bollingbroke, Gibbon, and Voltaire, genius still redeems large portions from neglect, it is the portions, for the most part, in which their infidelity does not appear; those which it infests being generally considered as blots and not beauties in their works. But as for supplanting the Bible,—its circulation, the veneration with which it is regarded, and the efforts to make it utter the vernacular of all nations, are incomparably greater than in Voltaire's day. It is even ludicrous now to read in Voltaire's letters his unfulfilled prophecies of the approaching glories of the new dispensation of "Reason," in whose splendour the waning Bible was to be lost. On the contrary, the infidel literature of the day has, for the most part, gone into deep shadow, while that shines with a brighter and more diffused light than ever. The talent devoted to its vindication—its illustration—its criticism—and the toil and cost spent in its translation and circulation, have been far greater than at any other equal period since Christianity was first proclaimed to be "the truth of God." This, it may be said, does not prove Christianity true: it is admitted; but it conclusively proves this,—the folly of the vaunting tone ever assumed by every fresh storming party, and the equal folly of the transient panics as constantly felt by those who man the walls.

In truth, however we may lament that minds like those of Voltaire, Hume, or Gibbon, should have been prostituted to the cause of infidelity, or mourn the mischief which their writings may have done, especially during their own time, there is one point of view in which we can hardly regret that Christianity has met with such assailants. The attacks of such men on Christianity furnish most powerful proofs of its indomitable life. Its inherent strength would never have been so conspicuously seen except it had been thus tried; we can now more safely repose in the solidity of a structure on which so many storms have burst in vain. Never since Christianity entered the world have writers of greater talent or wider popularity conspired for its downfall, or under circumstances more favourable to the success of the enterprise, (could anything have made it successful), than during the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Of all these writers, Voltaire was by far the most active, the most witty, the most variously endowed with the gifts of genius; the most voluminous, the most incessant in his attacks, the most widely circulated, the most eagerly read; and yet it is no paradox to say, that he has proved in reality one of the least dangerous. His general character has, in a great degree, destroyed his influence as an assailant of Christianity. Not only is there so much in his general writings which the universal voice of all decent society condemns—not only is the tone in which he speaks of all things reverenced by man, whether human or divine, so impartially profane—not only is his morality so lax, his estimate of human nature so contemptuous, his reputation for mendacity and malice so well established, as to make him a questionable ally of any cause, but it is impossible that a mind imbued with the least particle of candour or love of truth can fail to see all his worst traits conspicuously exemplified when he touches on Christianity. "Per fas aut nefas," seems to be his motto, when the object is to discredit or cast ridicule on the Bible.

The libertine, who has come to a foregone conclusion, and is willing to accept anything which insults the religion he hates and the truths which are unwelcome to him, can

alone gloat upon the perpetual ribaldry of Voltaire, or accept his jests and mockery for argument. The bulk of ordinary readers will ever feel, that it is passionate hatred which speaks, that there is no fair or honest attempt to investigate evidence, and that truth, candour, decency, are all perpetually outraged.

As far as argument is concerned, perhaps one of the best ways of conveying to the minds of general readers an idea of Voltaire's incompetency to deal with such large subjects as Christianity and the Bible, is to give a slight specimen of his mode of dealing with matters where prejudice and passion were not likely to be half so strong. We may there see, clearly enough, how completely his genius was the reverse of that of a philosopher, how unfitted to investigate evidence; how completely it was the slave of preconception; how incapable of breaking through the little circle of previous theory or presumed experience. His credulous incredulity—we know not what else to call it—is coaxed with strange facility into accepting anything which makes for a preconception, and rejecting everything that makes against it. Let us consider two striking examples, in one of which science is concerned, and in the other literary taste. In the article "Shells" in the Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire attempts to deal with the puzzling fact, then beginning to excite notice, that true marine fossils are found on the mountains of Switzerland and in other elevated regions. He will not hear of it; no evidence shall establish it; and he resorts to the most ridiculous hypotheses to evade it. The "shells" may be "snails' shells," or they are the "cockle shells" of the multitude of palmers who made their way to Rome over the Alps during the middle ages! It may be thought that this last is one of the jests by which his petulance was accustomed to turn the edge of any inconvenient argument. If it be so, what can be said of such a mode of getting rid of plain facts which imperatively required to be accounted for? But, in truth, he seems to urge it as a really plausible solution; and it is not incredible, since he resorts to others hardly less ridiculous. "Lastly," says he, "I deny not that, a hundred miles from the sea we meet with petrified oysters, conches, univalves, productions which perfectly resemble marine ones, but are we sure that the soil of the earth may not produce these fossils? The formation of vegetable agate should make us suspend our judgment. A tree has not borne the agate that is like a tree, and the sea may not have produced the fossil shells which seem to be those of little marine animals." Thus does incredulity become as credulous as superstition itself; and all this because Voltaire had resolved that, whatever came of it, the fact which seemed to say that the sea had once flowed over what are now high mountain-ranges, in short, pointed to a "deluge" of some sort, must be ignored or denied! It may be supposed that he had objections to "deluges" of all kind, but from the article entitled "Deluge" in the same work, one may shrewdly infer that it was chiefly the thought of the "Noachian deluge" that made him resolve that there should be no fossil marine shells in such inconvenient places. At any rate a genuine philosopher, whether he accepted the Noachian deluge or not, would have accepted the facts; hypothesis might come after. It was of a piece with the same credulous incredulity to declare, as he so frankly does in one of his letters to D'Alembert, that no evidence should make him believe a miracle; though to suppose it false, in the case he supposes, would certainly involve a greater mystery. "If a hundred thousand men," says he, "were to assure me that they all with their own eyes saw a dead man raised, I should say that they were all dazzled." That is, to avoid believing a great improbability, he would believe one that would amount to an impossibility.

Now, let us look at him when prejudices of another kind are concerned,—those of his narrow poetic, and especially

Voltaire. dramatic theory,—and see how he speaks of Shakespeare. Thus he writes to La Harpe, August 15, 1776:—"M. D'Alembert and your other friends are doing a patriotic work, it seems to me, in daring to defend, in full academy, Sophocles, Corneille, Euripides, and Racine, against Gilles Shakespeare and Pierrot le Tourneur." It will be needful to wash your hands after that battle, for you will combat against scavengers (contre des gadouards)." In the same letter, the author of Pucelle complains vehemently of the indecencies of Shakespeare, and shows how impossible it would be to translate him literally without shocking the delicacy of a Parisian audience! It is likely; but it is certainly droll to hear such a man lecturing on the claims of decency; and equally so to think that his timid modesty is in alarm for the delicacy of a social condition, of which the refinement was so exquisite as to speech, and the grossness so great as regards conduct.² After some similar compliments to Shakespeare, Voltaire concludes his letter thus:—"I know very well that Corneille has great faults; I have said only too much on that point; but they are the faults of a great man; and Rimer had very good reason to say that Shakespeare is but an ugly ape (n'était qu'un vilain singe)." In 1765, he writes, "Shakespeare is a savage, who had some imagination. He has many happy lines, but his plays can only please in London and Canada! It is no good sign of the taste of a nation when what it admires, is admired nowhere else." (A. M. Saurin.)

It was not from ignorance of the language that Voltaire did not appreciate Shakespeare, for there have been few Frenchmen better acquainted with English than himself. Indeed, it appears that he early translated some scenes of Julius Caesar, selecting as he politely expresses it, "a few pearls from Shakespeare's enormous dunghill (énorme fumier)."³ So early as 1735 we find him, in a letter to M. de Cileville, speaking of his translations of the above scenes thus,—"It is a sufficiently faithful translation from an English author who lived a hundred and fifty years ago; it is Shakespeare—the Corneille of London—a great fool elsewhere (grand fou d'ailleurs)."

One whose prejudices are so strong, tastes so narrow, and criticism so conventional, all whose notions, once impressed, seem stereotyped, can hardly be expected, when far deeper antipathies were involved, to weigh evidence calmly or judge fairly. He who wrote such articles as that on "Shells" might be expected to deal summarily with the evidences for the Bible; and he who thus appraised the merits of Shakespeare, might well despise its sublimity and beauty.

The extraordinary liberties which he took both with truth and his antagonists, whenever passion was involved, are but too obvious in many a literary squabble of his life. It was not to be expected that Christianity should fare any better than his literary enemies.

If a difficulty stands in the way he escapes by any road;

Voltaire. venturing upon the most hardy assertions, even when in utter ignorance of the subject on which he is writing. He often asserts only what the shallowest sciolism could have risked; or which, if we do not attribute it to sciolism, we can only account for by supposing his effrontery yet more astounding than his ignorance. Thus, to give a slight example; when impugning the authenticity of the Pentateuch, he employs the almost incredible argument, that the names of the books—Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy—are Greek; that there are none such in the Hebrew; and that, therefore, the books probably had an origin far later than the alleged age of Moses. It may be thought but decent, that persons writing against the authenticity of a book should at least know as much as its title in the language in which it was originally written. Some may say that a man of Voltaire's information could not have been ignorant that the above are but the names assigned to these books by the Septuagint translators, and that the books, in Hebrew, are known by their own Hebrew titles. Voltaire has given us in his writings so many examples of haste and ignorance, that it is hazardous to say that even this may not be amongst them. But supposing it is not so, we leave it to the reader to say whether it makes the matter any better. For if he knew the utter absurdity of the argument he was using, how can we absolve him from the vilest tracasserie in resorting to it?

His flagrant faults as a controvertist are strikingly exemplified in the articles on religious topics, inserted in his Philosophical Dictionary. It is everywhere evident that, so far from being a philosopher, he is writing as a passionate advocate, and for the sake of effect; his method corresponds; nothing can better answer his purpose than the rambling and disjointed manner in which he has treated the various subjects, giving only just what it was convenient to give, mingling history with fable and legend; while banter, ludicrous apologue, sneer, sarcasm, irony, and the whole rhetoric of malignant scorn, are perpetually appealed to. It is in this random work,—in part, a collection of the articles which he contributed to the celebrated Encyclopédie,—that he has vented, perhaps as freely as anywhere, his spleen against Christianity. It is not possible to look into it without seeing how completely justice and candour are forgotten in every page. Retailing every cavil he had got second-hand from the English deists, he ignores altogether the replies of the great writers, such as Butler or Lardner, on the other side. Every difficulty in Scripture history is exaggerated, and for the most part the solutions ignored. If there be a perfectly legitimate choice of a less difficulty, it is seldom hinted at; and if there are two equally plausible interpretations, as far as the letter is concerned—one sensible, the other foolish—he is sure to take that which gives the foolish meaning, and to

¹ This writer had, much to his own honour, and the horror of Voltaire, maintained the supremacy of Shakespeare as a dramatist.

² If Voltaire is not precisely the person to reprove Shakespeare for indecency, one would imagine he is still less entitled to lecture Pascal about profanity; yet he does so in one place with edifying solemnity. In his annotations on that celebrated portion of the Pensées, in which Pascal reasons with the atheist, he says:—"Cet article paraît un peu indécent et puéril; cette idée de jeu, de perte, et de gain, ne convient point à la gravité du sujet." This is, indeed, "the devil reproving sin!"

³ From this amusing letter, in which he gives expression to his indignation against Tourneur, and regrets that himself, by an early translation of a scene or two of Shakespeare, should have paved the way for such sacrilege, we give an extract:—"Auriez-vous lu deux volumes de ce misérable Tourneur, dans lesquels il veut nous faire regarder Shakespeare comme le seul modèle de la véritable tragédie? Il l'appelle le dieu du théâtre. Il sacrifie tous les Français sans exception à son idole, comme on sacrifiait autrefois des cochons à Cérès. Il ne daigne pas même nommer Corneille et Racine. Ces deux grands hommes sont seulement enveloppés dans la proscription générale, sans que leurs noms soient prononcés. Il y a déjà deux tomes imprimés de ce Shakespeare, qu'on prendrait pour des pièces de la foire, faites il y a deux cents ans.

"Ce barbouilleur a trouvé le secret de faire engager le roi, la reine, et toute la famille royale, à souscrire à son ouvrage. Avez-vous lu son abominable grimoire, dont il y aura encore cinq volumes? Avez-vous une haine assez vigoureuse contre cet impudent imbécille? Souffrirez-vous l'affront qu'il fait à la France? Vous et M. de Thibouville, vous êtes trop doux. Il n'y a point en France assez de camouflés, assez de bonnets d'âne, assez de piliers pour un pareil faquin. Le sang petille dans mes vieilles veines, en vous parlant de lui. S'il ne vous a pas mis en colère, je vous tiens pour un homme impassible. Ce qu'il y a d'affreux, c'est que le monstre a un parti en France, et pour comble de calamité et d'horreur, c'est moi qui autrefois parlai le premier de ce Shakespeare; c'est moi qui le premier montrai aux Français, quelques perles que j'avais trouvées dans son énorme fumier. Je ne m'attendais pas que je servirais un jour à fouler aux pieds les couronnes de Racine et de Corneille, pour en orner le front d'un histrion barbare."

Voltaire, insist upon it, as if there were no doubt of its being the true interpretation. Take, as a trifling example, one very short section in the article on "Christianity," in which he is dealing with the old but shallow objection, that we find the profane historians so silent as to the facts of the evangelical history. He says that "Josephus says nothing of Christ" (he of course summarily rejects the disputed passage), "and yet Josephus' father must have witnessed all the miracles of Christ,"—a gratuitous assumption, for we know not one syllable about Josephus' father. If the profane historians are silent, Voltaire, it seems, can make them speak when it answers his purpose. If Christians were to use the same licence, they could doubtless make them speak too.

Similarly, on the statement that, at the crucifixion, there was "darkness over the whole land for three hours," Voltaire chooses to pass by, without mentioning, the more natural interpretation, and will have it that the whole "earth" is meant, and that since Rome must have been in utter darkness three hours, it is unaccountable that no historian should have mentioned the phenomenon. Speaking in the same article of the massacre of Bethlehem, he, by way of exaggerating the horrors of the deed, and rendering it more strange that nothing has been said about it by Josephus, reminds us that the traditions of the Greek Church (for which, in any other case, he would have had as much respect as for Baron Munchausen's Travels) make the number of the victims about 14,000,¹ though the size of the village of Bethlehem at once shows the statement to be a lying legend of the most enormous dimensions. This, by the by, is an example of his constant habit of infusing a deceitful colouring-matter into the narrative. When dealing with the sacred history, he perpetually throws in (for the purpose no doubt of increasing the effect of ridicule, and confounding things that differ toto cælo) copious references to the apocryphal books both of the Old and New Testaments, to the wildest follies of the early heresies, and to the idlest legends, whether of rabbinical or Romish origin, as if the Bible were implicated with them or responsible for them!

Many of his statements certainly astonish us for their temerity, whether we attribute them to ignorance or effrontery. Thus, for example, he says, in the article "Gospel"—"It is a decided truth, whatever Abbadie may say to the contrary, that none of the first Fathers of the Church, down to Irenæus inclusive, have quoted any passage from the four gospels with which we are acquainted;" and under the article "Christianity" he affirms, with still more marvellous assurance, that "Fifty-four societies had fifty-four different gospels, all secret, like their mysteries, all unknown to the Gentiles, who never saw our four canonical gospels until the end of two hundred and fifty years."

The above are comparatively venial specimens of his ordinary manner; the worst, for obvious reasons, we purposely refrain from giving. Suffice it to say, that so transparent is the animus with which he writes, so unscrupulous the way in which he trifles with evidence, so arbitrary both his credulity and his incredulity, that for this, as well as for the other serious reasons we have stated, he can never be a very formidable propagandist of infidelity. Gibbon and Hume were far more plausible assailants.

In one respect Voltaire is almost unique among infidels, and we trust will ever remain so; we mean in the entire absence, as of all veneration for what his fellow-men deem sacred, so of all courtesy and forbearance towards his fellow-men in the expression of his contempt for it. Things which, in their esteem, are most sacred mysteries, he contemptuously uses as a butt for his ribald wit. Over the most solemn and touching narratives of Holy Writ he chat-

ters and hops about, and voids his dirt, with as little sense of indecorum as a jackdaw would feel in doing the like on the towers of Notre Dame. Voltaire.

We do not of course demand that he who does not believe the Bible to be true should approach its contents, or argue against its evidence, with the veneration of a man who does. But no one with the slightest tincture of right feeling; still more, no one who at all sincerely desires to convince his fellows of what he deems their error, will make their most sacred convictions the theme of obscene jest and revolting witticisms. This, nevertheless, Voltaire has done; and it is this chiefly which makes us say that Voltaire will never do much mischief as an apostle of infidelity. Those must be already infidels, and infidels of a very coarse stamp, who will tolerate him when he gets on such subjects. The generality of people will simply be disgusted with him; and while they wonder at his wit, will wonder as much at his abuse of it. He can here receive applause only from those who, being lost to shame, can receive no injury from him; who have prepared themselves to be initiated in his mysteries by first stripping themselves naked.

In dealing with the doctrines of Revelation, Voltaire constantly employs arguments equally applicable to some of the principal doctrines of Natural Religion; his objections against the one are equally valid, if valid at all, against the other, and are fairly met, if the objector still holds the latter, by the irrefragable reasoning of Butler. But for Voltaire, the "Analogy" might as well never have been written. Provided he can get a plausible argument against a doctrine of the Bible, he does not mind though his reasoning involve the moral administration of the world, and the complementary doctrine of a future state of retribution, in the same dilemma. And perhaps, as regards his own views, there was no reason why he should care; for it is pretty certain that he did not hold the above doctrines, or, at all events, with any firmness. Assuredly his faith does not prevent his often making himself very merry with them. The only theological doctrine which he seems to have retained with a firm grasp, and to have constantly defended, is, that the universe is certainly the product of Power and Intelligence adequate to the phenomena. He seems to have had a sincere contempt for all the ordinary theories by which atheism vainly strives to account for the indications of design in the universe, without supposing any design at all. His plain, strong, natural sagacity recoiled in undissembled disgust from the metaphysical systems by which it studies to sophisticate the plain deductions of human reason on this subject. Nor is there, in all his Philosophical Dictionary, a more characteristic specimen of his genius than the 3d, 4th, and 5th sections of the article entitled "Dieu—Dieux," in which he touches on the theories of the author of the Système de la Nature and other atheists, and vindicates the natural logic of common sense in the argument from design. That article will give the reader an amusing and, what cannot be readily found in the theological portions of the work, an instructive specimen of Voltaire's manner.

But beyond this one point, the barren acknowledgment of a Being whose creative power and wisdom originally called this universe into being, Voltaire leaves everything in doubt. Whether the universal parent takes any special care of the children he has made, or any cognisance of their conduct; whether he exercises any moral government over the world; whether there is any future state in which that government will be consummated and vindicated, is all left in darkness. His general mood would seem, however, to be much the same as that of Bolingbroke—denying all

¹ Divide the 14,000 by 1000, and we get at the number which Michellis very justly conjectures to be about the truth. He thinks that 14 will be an ample allowance.

Voltaire. Providence but that of general laws, and questioning the doctrine of a future retribution. In his Condide and other tales, he sedulously inculcates principles which imply that the doctrines of what is called "natural religion" (with the single exception that there is an architect of the world, whether we know anything else about him or not), are quite as doubtful, and involve principles quite as repugnant to the human intellect, as those of Revelation itself. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should often have used arguments against Christianity, the issues of which, in relation to theism, he did not trouble his head about. But it is of importance that the reader should remember it; for to any men who still maintain the ordinary doctrines of natural religion, the favoured arguments of Voltaire against Christianity become telum imbelles, unless they be willing to go further, and apply Voltaire's arguments as far as Voltaire did himself. It must also be confessed, that in touching on subjects connected with "natural religion," as in the celebrated tale of Condide, he indulges just the same reckless tone, the same disregard of counter-evidence, the same ribald jests on solemn themes, as in his criticisms on the Bible.

We have conceded that it is some palliation of Voltaire's injustice to Christianity, that he had chiefly before his eyes the caricature of it which the spectacle of the corruptions, profligacy, hypocrisy, and cruelty of the Roman Church of his day presented; the persecution he had himself suffered at its hands still further inflamed and embittered his feelings. That there is much in all this to explain the acrimony of Voltaire, and of many other philosophers of his day, against the church, there can be no doubt, and we would exercise no niggard charity towards them on this account; but it will not avail for the effectual defence of such men as Voltaire. It is of far greater force as urged on behalf of some whose ignorance of history was greater, while, to their credit, their virulence was less—of D'Alembert for example. But it is plain that Voltaire did not content himself with hating and ridiculing the vices of the actual system he saw before his eyes, and which made many a man an infidel, because in his ignorance of what Christianity was, he thought that to be it. Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary and other writings show plainly enough that he had diligently ransacked not only the voluminous writings of the English deists, but the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testaments, in search of objections and difficulties, though he troubles himself not at all about the answers.

The habitual profanity of Voltaire has led to one charge against him which, it is due to justice to say, is very doubtful. He has often been accused of applying the well-known expression "ecrasez l'infame" (usually in his printed letters contracted into "ecratez l'inf.", or more briefly still, ecr. l'inf.) to the Saviour. There is, however, reason to believe that this offensive application was not designed. The first, so far as we are aware, who undertook to defend him from this charge was Professor De Morgan, in his interesting sketch of D'Alembert, inserted some years ago in a Biographical Dictionary,¹ which, unfortunately for literature, was discontinued after the publication of a few volumes. The phrase occurs in Voltaire's letters to D'Alembert, and also in D'Alembert's letters to him. De Morgan urges that the feminine forms of the articles and pronouns with which it is construed, the nature of the context, and Voltaire's known abhorrence of the ecclesiastical system of his times, justify the supposition that it was to the actually existing church of France as seen before his eyes, with all its cruelties, hypocrisy, and corruption, that he applies this opprobrious expression. The interpretation seems to us the most probable, and is certainly the most charitable, one.

Professor De Morgan only adduces three instances of the phrase, all occurring in the correspondence between Voltaire and D'Alembert. The phrase is, however, of very frequent occurrence, not only there but in the correspondence with Frederick of Prussia and others, and especially in the letters to M. Damilaville. We have examined very many more instances, and in all, the examination of the context and the grammatical construction tends to bear out Professor De Morgan's interpretation, or at least elicits nothing that contradicts it. The feminine forms of articles, pronouns, and adjectives, are constantly construed with it; as cette, inconnue, &c.

It is also observable, that the phrase occurs principally, if not exclusively, in the letters written after the proceedings in connection with Calas and other victims of ecclesiastical oppression had so inflamed the ire of Voltaire. This synchronism is not insignificant. Though Voltaire principally meant the church of France, it is very obvious, from numberless passages, that he would not have been at all sorry if the "destruction" he so passionately desires had extended to the Christian church in general. He evidently was not particular; nor at all inclined to divorce what his imagination had married—the Christian religion and superstition. Still one would willingly absolve him from the opprobrium of using the above words in the gratuitously offensive sense so often imputed to them.

The form of the ribaldry in which Voltaire very generally indulges, as, for example, in the articles in his Philosophical Dictionary, is not more offensive than it is clumsy and stupid. He often begins by a solemn asseveration of his entire belief, on the ground of their being revealed, of the things he is about to deride. His opening sentence in the article "Deluge" may afford a brief specimen. "We commence with the observation that we are believers in the universal deluge because it is recorded in the Holy Scriptures transmitted to Christians." In like manner he is constantly in the habit of prefacing his scuffs at miracle and mystery, by such declarations as these:—"He implicitly receives them as matter of faith, though wholly inscrutable to the human understanding;"—"If Holy Writ had not revealed them, they must have been rejected, from the contradictions and impossibilities they involve;"—"That it is natural and inevitable for man to disbelieve these things; but we must submit our reason to our faith—God's ways are not as our ways." The last text is cited to point this profane jest a score of times; he seems never tired of it.

Now what surprises one is, not that, considering his general character, he should have indulged in this style, but that he should have thought this poor feint of believing docility, instantly followed by scoff and profanity, to be such superlative wit as to bear perpetual repetition. Ironical agreement with an opponent's views may be very effective if consistently carried into the whole argumentation, in order to give zest and piquancy to a reductio ad absurdum. Admirable specimens are to be found in Pascal's Provincial Letters, where the matter of the pleasantry is as innocent as the manner. But Pascal's exquisite taste would have thought it a clumsy artifice to affect an implicit belief in what he was just about to denounce as an incredible absurdity. As employed by Voltaire in the articles now referred to, the railing enters not into the argument at all; it is a mere insulated sneer, which becomes disgusting from its repetition, as it is offensive from its profanity. Even those who would not be scandalized at the profanity would be disposed to ask, "Why should the author be always affirming this gratuitous lie, or think that we can never be wearied of this stale jest?" It is as absurd as if a man, refuting the opinions of Voltaire, were to preface

¹ Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. 1, p. 812.