If zinc be combined in a certain manner with another metal, and submitted to the action of dilute sulphuric acid, it is dissolved in the form of an oxide; it is in fact burned at the expense of the oxygen contained in the fluid.  A consequence of this action is the production of an electric current, which, if conducted through a wire, renders it magnetic.  In thus effecting the solution of a pound weight, for example, of zinc, we obtain a definite amount of force adequate to raise a given weight one inch, and to keep it suspended; and the amount of weight it will be capable of suspending will be the greater the more rapidly the zinc is dissolved.

By alternately interrupting and renewing the contact of the zinc with the acid, and by very simple mechanical arrangements, we can give to the iron an upward and downward or a horizontal motion, thus producing the conditions essential to the motion of any machinery.

This moving force is produced by the oxidation of the zinc; and, setting aside the name given to the force in this case, we know that it can be produced in another manner.  If we burn the zinc under the boiler of a steam-engine, consequently in the oxygen of the air instead of the galvanic pile, we should produce steam, and by it a certain amount of force.  If we should assume, (which, however, is not proved,) that the quantity of force is unequal in these cases,—­that, for instance, we had obtained double or triple the amount in the galvanic pile, or that in this mode of generating force less loss is sustained,—­we must still recollect the equivalents of zinc and coal, and make these elements of our calculation.  According to the experiments of Despretz, 6 pounds weight of zinc, in combining with oxygen, develops no more heat than 1 pound of coal; consequently, under equal conditions, we can produce six times the amount of force with a pound of coal as with a pound of zinc.  It is therefore obvious that it would be more advantageous to employ coal instead of zinc, even if the latter produced four times as much force in a galvanic pile, as an equal weight of coal by its combustion under a boiler.  Indeed it is highly probable, that if we burn under the boiler of a steam-engine the quantity of coal required for smelting the zinc from its ores, we shall produce far more force than the whole of the zinc so obtained could originate in any form of apparatus whatever.

Heat, electricity, and magnetism, have a similar relation to each other as the chemical equivalents of coal, zinc, and oxygen.  By a certain measure of electricity we produce a corresponding proportion of heat or of magnetic power; we obtain that electricity by chemical affinity, which in one shape produces heat, in another electricity or magnetism.  A certain amount of affinity produces an equivalent of electricity in the same manner as, on the other hand, we decompose equivalents of chemical compounds by a definite measure of electricity.  The magnetic force of the pile is therefore limited to the extent of the chemical affinity, and in the case before us is obtained by the combination of the zinc and sulphuric acid.  In the combustion of coal, the heat results from, and is measured by, the affinity of the oxygen of the atmosphere for that substance.