S 16. On an improved form of the Voltaic Battery.

1120.  In a simple voltaic circuit (and the same is true of the battery) the chemical forces which, during their activity, give power to the instrument, are generally divided into two portions; one of these is exerted locally, whilst the other is transferred round the circle (947. 996.); the latter constitutes the electric current of the instrument, whilst the former is altogether lost or wasted.  The ratio of these two portions of power may be varied to a great extent by the influence of circumstances:  thus, in a battery not closed, all the action is local; in one of the ordinary construction, much is in circulation when the extremities are in communication:  and in the perfect one, which I have described (1001.), all the chemical power circulates and becomes electricity.  By referring to the quantity of zinc dissolved from the plates (865. 1120.), and the quantity of decomposition effected in the volta-electrometer (711. 1126,) or elsewhere, the proportions of the local and transferred actions under any particular circumstances can be ascertained, and the efficacy of the voltaic arrangement, or the waste of chemical power at its zinc plates, be accurately determined.

1121.  If a voltaic battery were constructed of zinc and platina, the latter metal surrounding the former, as in the double copper arrangement, and the whole being excited by dilute sulphuric acid, then no insulating divisions of glass, porcelain or air would be required between the contiguous platina surfaces; and, provided these did not touch metallically, the same acid which, being between the zinc and platina, would excite the battery into powerful action, would, between the two surfaces of platina, produce no discharge of the electricity, nor cause any diminution of the power of the trough.  This is a necessary consequence of the resistance to the passage of the current which I have shown occurs at the place of decomposition (1007. 1011.); for that resistance is fully able to stop the current, and therefore acts as insulation to the electricity of the contiguous plates, inasmuch as the current which tends to pass between them never has a higher intensity than that due to the action of a single pair.

1122.  If the metal surrounding the zinc be copper (1045.), and if the acid be nitro-sulphuric acid (1020.), then a slight discharge between the two contiguous coppers does take place, provided there be no other channel open by which the forces may circulate; but when such a channel is permitted, the return or back discharge of which I speak is exceedingly diminished, in accordance with the principles laid down in the Eighth Series of these Researches.

1123.  Guided by these principles I was led to the construction of a voltaic trough, in which the coppers, passing round both surfaces of the zincs, as in Wollaston’s construction, 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 an instrument compact, powerful, economical, and easy of use.  On examining, however, what had been done before, I found that the new trough was in all essential respects the same as that invented and described by Dr. Hare, Professor in the University of Pennsylvania, to whom I have great pleasure in referring it.