Fifth letter on voltaic com­binations ; with some account of the effects of a large constant battery : addressed to Michael Faraday, Esq., D.C.L., F. R. S., Fullerian Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great Bri­tain

Abstract

The author, pursuing the train of reasoning detailed in his preceding letters, enters into the further investigation of the variable conditions in a voltaic combination on which its efficiency depends ; and the determination of the proper proportions of its elements for the economical application of its power to useful purposes. He finds that the action of the battery is by no means proportioned to the surfaces of the conducting hemispheres, but approximates to the simple ratio of their diameters ; and hence concludes that the circulating force of both simple and compound voltaic circuits increases with the surface of the conducting plates surrounding the active centres. On these principles he constructed a constant battery consisting of seventy cells in a single series, which gave, between charcoal points separated to a distance of three-quarters of an inch, a flame of considerable volume, forming a continuous arch, and emitting radiant heat and light of the greatest intensity. The latter, indeed, proved highly injurious to the eyes of the spectators, in which, although they were protected by grey glasses of double thickness, a state of very active inflammation was induced. The whole of the face of the author became scorched and inflamed, as if it had been exposed for many hours to a bright midsummer’s sun. The rays, when reflected from an imperfect parabolic metallic mirror in a lantern, and collected into a focus by a glass lens, readily burned a hole in a paper at a distance of many feet from their source. The heat was quite intolerable to the hand held near the lantern. Paper steeped in nitrate of silver and afterwards dried, was speedily turned brown by this light : and when a piece of fine wire-gauze was held before it, the pattern of the latter appeared in white lines, corresponding to the parts which it protected. The phenomenon of the transfer of the charcoal from one electrode to the other, first observed by Dr. Hare, was abundantly apparent ; taking place from the zincode (or positive pole,) to the platinode , (or negative pole). The arch of flame between the electrodes was attracted or repelled by the poles of a magnet, according as the one or the other pole was held above or below it : and the repulsion was at times so great as to extinguish the flame. When the flame was drawn from the pole of the magnet itself, included in the circuit, it rotated in a beautiful manner. The heating power of this battery was so great as to fuse, with the utmost readiness, a bar of platinum, one-eighth of an inch square : and the most infusible metals, such as pure rhodium, iridium, titanium, the native alloy of iridium and osmium, and the native ore of platinum, placed in a cavity scooped out of hard carbon, freely melted in considerable quantities.