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Primary Source 12.2
VOLTA AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE BATTERY1
Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) was born in the Duchy of Milan in a town called Como. He was
raised as a Catholic and remained so throughout his life. Volta became a professor of physics
in Como, and soon took a significant interest in electricity. First, he began to work with the
chemistry of gases, during which he discovered methane gas. He then studied electrical
capacitance, as well as derived new ways of studying both electrical potential and charge.
Most famously, Volta discovered what he termed a Voltaic pile, which was the first electrical
battery that could continuously provide electrical current to a circuit. Needless to say, Volta’s
discovery had a major impact in science and technology. In light of his contribution to the
study of electrical capacitance and discovery of the battery, the electrical potential difference,
voltage, and the unit of electric potential, the volt, were named in honor of him.
The following passage is excerpted from an essay, written in French, “On the Electricity
Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Substances of Different Kinds,” which Volta sent in
1800 to the President of the Royal Society in London, Joseph Banks, in hope of its publication.
The essay, described how to construct a battery, a source of steady electrical current, which
paved the way toward the “electric age.” At this time, Volta was working as a professor at the
University of Pavia.
For the excerpt online, click here.
The chief of these results, and which comprehends nearly all the others, is the
construction of an apparatus which resembles in its effects viz. (such as giving shocks to
the arms, &c.,2) the Leyden phial,3 and still better, electric batteries weakly charged; acting
continually, or whose charge, after each explosion recharges itself again; which in short
becomes perpetual, from one infallible 4 charge, from one action of impulse on the electric
fluid; but which besides differs essentially from the other, by this continual action which is
proper to it, and because that instead of consisting, like the ordinary phials and electric
batteries, in one or more isolated plates, or thin layers of those bodies deemed the only
electrics, and armed with conductors 5 or bodies called non-electrics, this new apparatus is
formed only of a number of these last bodies, chosen even among the best conductors, and
so the farthest removed, according to the usual opinion, from the electric principle. The
astonishing apparatus is nothing but an assemblage of a number of good conductors of a
different kind, arranged in a certain manner. Thus, 30, 40, 60, or more pieces of copper, or
better of silver, each applied to a piece of tin, or still better of zinc, and an equal number of
layers of water, or of some other liquid which may be a better conductor than simple water,
as salt water, lye, &c., or of bits of card or leather, &c., soaked in such liquids. Of such layers
interposed between each couple or combination of two different metals, one such alternate
Oliver Thatcher (ed.), The Library of Original Sources, 10 vols. (New York: University Research Extension.,
1907), 6:358–61.
2 An old abbreviation of etcetera.
3 A device that stores static electricity between two electrodes.
4 Properly working charge.
5 An object that permits electrical flow.
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series, and always in the same order, of these three kinds of conductors, is all that
constitutes M. Volta’s new instrument; which imitates so well the effects of the Leyden
phial or electric batteries; not indeed with the force and explosions of these, when highly
charged, but only equaling the effects of a battery charged to a very weak degree, of a
battery, however, having an immense capacity, but which besides infinitely surpasses the
virtue and the power of these same batteries; as it has no need, like them, of being charged
beforehand, by means of a foreign electricity; and as it is capable of giving the usual
commotion as often as ever it is properly touched. This apparatus, as it resembles more the
natural electric organ of the torpedo or of the electric eel than the Leyden phial and the
ordinary electric batteries, M. Volta calls the artificial electric organ. For the construction of
this instrument, M. Volta provides some dozens of small, round metal plates of copper, or
tin, or best of silver, about an inch in diameter, like shillings or half-crowns, and an equal
number of plates of tin, or much better of zinc, of the same shape and size. These piece she
places exactly one upon another, forming a column, pillar or pile. He provides also, as many
round pieces of card, or leather, or such like a spongy matter, capable of imbibing and
retaining much of the water, or other liquid when soaked in it. These soaked roullets or
circles are to be a little less in diameter than the small metal discs or plates that they may
not jut out beyond them. All these discs are then placed horizontally on a table, one over
another continually alternating, in a pile as high as will well support itself without tottering
and falling down: beginning with a plate of either of the metals, as for instance, the silver,
then upon that one of zinc, over which is to be put the soaked card; then other three discs,
over these in the same order, viz. a silver, next a zinc, and then another moistened card, &c.
After having raised the pile to about 20 of these stages or triads of plates, it will be
already capable, not only of affecting Cavallo’s 6 electrometer,7 assisted by the condenser, so
as to raise it 10 to 15°, charging it by a simple touching, so as to cause it give a spark, &c., as
also to strike the fingers with which we touch the top or bottom of the column, with several
small snaps, the fingers being wetted with water. But if to the 20 sets of triplets of the
plates be added 20 or 30 more, disposed in the same order, the actions of the extended pile
will be much stronger, and be felt through the arms up to the shoulders; and by the
continuing the touchings, the pains in the hands become insupportable.
M. Volta constructs and combines his apparatus in various ways and forms, more or
less powerful, convenient or amusing. One is as follows (Fig. 1, pl. 13,), which he calls a
couronne de tasses.8 He disposes in a row a number of cups of wood, or earth, or glass, or
anything but metal, half filled with pure water, or salt water or lye; these are all made to
communicate in a kind of chain, by several metallic areas of which one arm or link, Aa, or
only the extremity A, immersed in one of the cups, is of copper, or of copper silvered, and
the other Z, immersed in the following cup, is of tin, or rather of zinc, the other two being
soldered together near the crown of the arch. It is evident that a series of these cups, thus
connected together, either in a straight or curved line, by the two metals and the
intermediate liquid, is similar to the pillar or pile before described, and consequently will
exhibit similar effects. Thus, to produce commotion or sensation in the hands and arms, we
Tiberius Cavallo (1749–1809) was an Italian physicist who invented a device to amplify small electric
charges.
7 An electrical instrument for measuring electric charge or electrical potential difference.
8 French for “crown of mugs.”
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need only dip one hand into one of cups and the finger of the hand into another cup,
sufficiently far from the former; and the action will be so much stronger as the two cups are
farther asunder, or have the more intermediate cups; and consequently the greatest by
touching the first and last in the chain.
As to the structures in the other method, by the column or pile, Mr. Volta found out
various ways to prolong and extend it, in multiplying the metal plates without shaking it
down; to render this instrument convenient, portable and durable; and among others, the
three methods exhibited on figs. 2,3,4, pl. 13. In fig. 2, mmmm, are upright bars or rods, to
the number of three or four, or more, erected from the bottom the pile, and the extended to
a convenient height, inclosing the pile like a cage, to prevent its falling. These rods may be
either of glass, wood, or metal; only, in this last case, they must be hindered from touching
the metal plates; which may be done either by covering each metal rod with a glass tube or
by interposing between them and the pile some bands of cere-cloth or oiled paper, or any
imperfect conducting substance.
But the best expedient for forming the instrument of a great number of plates, as of
60, 80, or 1,000, is to divide the pile into two or more, as the figures 3 and 4 show, where
the pieces have all their respective positions or communications, as if it was one pile only,
plied and turned. In all these figures the different metal plates are denoted by the letters A
and Z, the initials of argent and zinc, and of the wet discs of card, or leather, &c., interposed
at each pair of those metals, by a later or band shaded black. The dotted lines show the
contact of each couple of metal plates, A and Z, where they made be conveniently soldered
together, cc, cc, cc are metal plates forming the communication between one column, one
section of a column, and another; and b, b, b, b, b, are basins of water, in communication
with the bottoms or extremities of the piles.
M. Volta concludes with various remarks and cautions in using this instrument;
showing that it is perpetual in its virtue, renewing its charge spontaneously, and serving
most of the purposes of the ordinary electrical machines, and even affecting and
manifesting its power by most of the human senses, viz. feeling, tasting, hearing, and
seeing.