During the year 1781 William Nicholson had published the first edition of “An Introduction to Natural Philosophy.” In the second section of the third book of the latter work he treats of magnetism, the methods of communicating it, and the variation of the compass. The loadstone, he says, “is a ponderous ore of iron, usually of a dirty black colour and hard enough to emit sparks with steel. It is found in most parts of the world, and possesses a natural magnetism acquired most probably from its situation or position with respect to the earth.” In the third section of the same third book he discourses upon electrical matter, electrical jars, electrical instruments, and devotes much space to the explanation of experiments and facts touching natural and atmospheric electricity, balls of fire, of the ignis fatuus, or will-with-the-wisp, of waterspouts, earthquakes, etc., alluding to most of the then well-known observations thereon recorded by different scientists.
To Nicholson is due the invention of a revolving doubler, an improvement upon that of Abraham Bennet, which is described and illustrated in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” as well as in No. 647, p. 10327, of the Sci. Am. Supplement (Read at A.D. 1794, also Phil. Trans., Vol. LXXVIII. p. 1, for M. Cavallo’s remarks upon the defects in Bennet’s doubler).
The above-named discovery of Nicholson and Carlisle, which, Mr. Davy says (Phil. Trans. for 1826, p. 386) was the true origin of all that had been previously done in electro-chemical science, together with Hisinger and Berzelius’ decomposition of salts, and the successful decomposition of ammonia, nitric acid, etc., made by the distinguished English chemical philosopher, Dr. William Henry (Nicholson’s Journal, Vol. IV. pp. 30, 209, 223 and 245; “Encyclopædia Metropolitana,” Vol. IV. pp. 221 and 611; Hutton’s abridgment of Phil. Trans., Vol. X. pp. 505, 599), as well as Davy’s decomposition of the earths and alkalies, creates at the commencement of another century, as we have already observed, an entirely new epoch in the history of chemistry.
References.—Nicholson’s letter to the Royal Society, read June 5, 1788, entitled “A description of an instrument which, by the turning of a winch, produces the two states of electricity without friction or communication with the earth” (influence or induction machine!); Nicholson’s Journal, 1800, Vol. IV. p. 179; Despretz, “Physique,” 1827, p. 432; Mechanics’ Magazine, Nov. 9, 1839; biography in “English Cyclopedia,” Vol. II. p. 82; Tomlinson, “Cyclopedia of Arts,” etc., 1862, Vol. I. p. 566; “Memoir of Joseph Henry,” 1880, p. 78; Highton, “The Electric Telegraph,” p. 28; Noad, “Manual,” p. 353; “Encycl. Brit.,” 1855, Vol. XXI. p. 628; Phil. Trans., Vol. LXXIX. p. 265; Philosophical Magazine, Vol. VII. p. 337, and XLV. p. 396; C. H. Wilkinson, “Elements of Galvanism,” 1804, Vol. II. pp. 21, 22, 46, 68, 375, etc.; “Bibl. Brit.,” Vol. XIX. p. 274; “Sciences et Arts,” Part I. p. 274, and Part II. p. 339, for Volta’s answer to Nicholson. For various treatises on, and methods of, effecting the decomposition of water, consult Adam W. Von Hauch (Mons’ Jour. de Chimie, Vol. I. p. 109); G. Carradori (Journal de Physique, An. XII. p. 20, “Nuova Scel. d’Op.,” quarto, Vol. I. p. 29, Paris and Milan, 1804); W. Wilson (Phil. Mag., Vol. XXII. p. 260); Cioni e Petrini (Brugnatelli’s An. di Chim., Vol. II. p. 322, 1805); M. Van Marum’s letter to Nauche (Jour. du Galvan., Eleventh Book, p. 187; Gilb. Ann., XI. p. 220); J. C. I. A. Creve, as at Ronalds’ “Catalogue,” p. 119; “Bibl. Britan.,” An. VIII. vol. xv. p. 23 and An. IX. vol. xvi. p. 23; J. C. Cuthbertson (Phil. Mag., Vol. XXIV. p. 170, 1806); Jos. Mollet’s Memoirs published at Aix and Lyons, 1821, 1823, as well as in the Reports of the Lyons Academy, 1823, 1825, and in the Comptes Rendus for 1823; Mr. Leeson (Sturgeon’s Annals, Vol. IV. p. 238, 1839; Robert Hare, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., N.S., Vol. VI. p. 339; L. Palmieri and P. Linari-Santi, “Telluro-Elettricismo,” 1844; M. Merget’s theses, read before the Paris Academy, Aug. 30, 1849; A. Connel, Phil. Mag., 4th Ser., for June 1854, p. 426); Dr. Edward Ash, “On the action of Metals ... upon water,” in letter to Humboldt, April 10, 1796.
A.D. 1800.—Grout (Jonathan, Jr.), of Belchertown, Mass., takes out, October 24, the first telegraph patent in the United States. It was for a contrivance which he operated between Martha’s Vineyard and Boston, about ninety miles’ distance, from hilltop to hilltop, and which was sighted by telescopes (“Telegraph in America,” J. D. Reid, 1887, p. 5; also “Growth of Industrial Art,” Washington, 1888, p. 55).
A.D. 1800.—Cruikshanks (William), of Woolwich, England, confirms Nicholson and Carlisle’s experiments, and, in his further prosecution of them, employs a pile consisting of from forty to a hundred pairs of zinc and silver plates, as well as a tube holding silver terminals or electrodes, in place of the platinum electrodes, which they were first to make use of.
He discovers that hydrogen is always evolved from the silver or copper end of the voltaic pile and oxygen from the other; that, under like circumstances, metals can be “completely revived” from their solutions; that pure oxygen is freed when a wire of non-oxidable metal, like gold, is connected with the zinc plate, and that fluids that contain no oxygen cannot transmit the voltaic current. These results were verified by Lieut. Col. Henry Haldane, whose many observations upon the series of metals best suited to the production of voltaic electricity and their respective powers in connection therewith are related at pp. 242 and 313, Vol. IV of Nicholson’s Journal for Sept. and Oct. 1800.
Cruikshanks was also the first to discover, in 1800, that when passing the electric current through water tinged with lithmus, the wire connected with the zinc end of the pile imparted a red tinge to the fluid contiguous to it, and that by using water coloured with Brazil wood, the wire connected with the silver end of the pile produced a deeper shade of colour in the surrounding fluid, whence it appeared that an acid was formed in the former case, and an alkali in the latter. Fahie, who thus mentions the fact, justly remarks that upon this discovery are dependent the electro-chemical telegraphs proposed by Bakewell, Caselli, Bonelli, D’Arlincourt, Sawyer and others.
Cruikshanks is the inventor of the galvanic trough, an improvement upon the voltaic pile, made by soldering together rectangular plates of zinc and copper, and so arranging them horizontally, in a box of baked wood coated with an insulating substance, as to allow of open spaces which can be filled with a solution of salt and water or with diluted acid, to take the place of the wet plates of cloth, paper or pasteboard. Cruikshanks’ plan was adopted in the construction of the powerful battery of 600 pairs, which Napoleon Bonaparte presented to the Ecole Polytechnique and upon which Gay-Lussac and Thénard made their important experiments during the year 1808. As Noad remarks, it is a very convenient form when sulphate of copper is used, for Dr. Fyfe has shown (Phil. Mag., Vol. XI. p. 145) that this exciting agent increases the electro-chemical intensity of the electric current as compared with that evolved by dilute sulphuric acid in the proportion of 72 to 16.
Both the above and Volta’s form of battery were much improved upon by Dr. William Babington (1756–1833), who united the pairs of zinc and copper plates by soldering them at one point, and by attaching them to a strip of wood in such a manner as to allow of the entire line being immersed at will into an earthenware or wooden trough having a corresponding number of cells or partitions. The extraordinarily strong voltaic battery, constructed in 1808 for the Royal Institution of London, by Mr. Eastwick under the direction of Sir Humphry Davy and of John George Children, was built upon this plan. It consisted of 200 separate parts, each part being composed of ten double plates, in all 2000 double plates of zinc and copper with a total surface of 128,000 square inches, and the charge which William H. Pepys was accustomed to give it consisted of a mixture of 1168 parts of water, 108 parts nitrous acid, and 25 parts sulphuric acid.