THE

PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER 1800.


I. On the Electricity excited by 
the mere Contact of conducting Subftances of different Kinds. In a Letter from Mr. ALEXANDER VOLTA, 
F.R.S. Profeffor of Natural Pilofophy in the Univerfity of Pavia, to the Right Hon. Sir JOSEPH 
BANKS, Bart. K.B. P.R.S. *

Coma in the Milanefe, March 20, 1800. 
AFTER a long 
filence, for which I fhall offer no apology, I have the pleafure of communicating to you, and 
through you to the Royal Society, fome flriking refults I have obtained in purfuing my experiments 
on electricity excited by the mere mutual contact of different kinds of metal, and even by that of 
other conductors, alfo different from each other, either liquid or containing tome liquid, to which 
they are properly indebted for their conducting power. The principal of thefe refults, which 
comprehends nearly all the reft, is the conftruction of an apparatus having a refemblance in its 
effects (that is to fay, in the fhock it is capable of making the arms, &c. experience) to the 
Leyden flafk, or, rather, to an electric battery weakly charged acting inceffantly, which fhould 
charge itfelf after each explofion; and, in a word, which fhould have an inexhauftible charge, a 
perpeival action or impulfe on the electric fluid; but which differs from it efrentially both by 
this continual action, which is peculiar
 

* Tranflated from the author's paper publifhed in French in the Philofophical 
Tranfactions for 1800, part 2.