References.—“Notizia di G. D. Romagnosi, stesa da Cesare Cantù,” Milan, 1835; “Nuova Scelta d’ Opuscoli,” Vol. I. p. 201; Gazetta di Roveredo for 1802, No. 65; “Atti della Reale Accad. delle Scienze di Torino,” Vol. IV, April 7, 1869; J. C. Poggendorff, Vol. II. pp. 681, 682; S. I. Prime’s “Life of Morse,” 1875, p. 264; Phil. Mag., Vol. LVIII. p. 43; Journal Soc. of Arts, April 23, 1858, p. 356, and July 29, 1859, pp. 605, 606; Bibl. Ital., Vol. XCVIII. p. 60; Gilbert, Annalen, 1821, Vol. LXVIII. p. 208; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XIII. p. 1318; “Biographie Générale,” Vol. XLII. pp. 574, 575, the last named remarking that the discovery alluded to in the works of Aldini and Izarn passed unnoticed till Oersted caused its value to be fully appreciated.
A.D. 1802.—Parrot (George Friedrich), Russian physician and professor at Dorpat, is, of all the European savants, the one who developed most extensively the chemical theory of the voltaic pile. The superior manner in which all his observations were carried on have led many to consider him justly entitled to the credit of being the founder of the theory (Figuier, “Exposition et Histoire,” etc., Paris, 1857, Vol. IV. chapitre viii. pp. 426–429).
He commenced his experiments in 1801, and first recorded them in a memoir which was crowned the same year by the Batavi Scientific Society of Haarlem. His other papers on the same subject followed in rapid succession, mainly through L. W. Gilbert’s Annalen der Physik, under such heads as: “Sketch of a New Theory of Galvanic Electricity, and Concerning the Decomposition of Water,” etc. (“Combination of Induction and Chemical Action,” Gilb., Vol. XII. p. 49, Seypfer, p. 200), “How to Measure Electricity,” “Relative to the Electrometer,” “The Effects of the Condenser,” and “The Theory of Volta Concerning Galvanic Electricity,” all of which appeared in Vol. LXI. of the Annalen. These papers were alluded to in his letter to the editors of the Annales de Chimie et de Physique (An. Ch. et Phys., Vol. XLII. p. 45), and were afterward greatly amplified in his “Treatise on Natural Philosophy.”
Parrot started with the determination to demolish completely the theories of Volta and to thoroughly instruct him anew (instruire de toutes pièces le procès du physicien de Pavie), and it must be admitted that the many important facts enounced by Parrot were such as would have ordinarily created a disturbing influence, but they became known after Volta’s views had been thoroughly espoused by many German and French scientists and consequently attracted comparatively little attention.
At p. 466, Vol. II of Dr. Thomas Young’s “Course of Lectures,” London, 1807, reference is made to a paper in Gilbert’s Annalen der Physik (X. p. 11, also XIII. p. 244), concerning Parrot’s theory of evaporation, with mention of the fact that the same paper contains a proposal for inoculating the clouds with thunder and lightning, by projecting bombs to a sufficient height.
Parrot also devised a scheme for telegraphing, which is described in the Mem. Acad. Petropol., ser. vi. Vol. I for 1838, and is alluded to in the Report on Telegraphs for the United States, made at request of the Hon. Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Treasury, by the Committee on Science and the Arts of the Franklin Institute. The proposed telegraph, as worded in the Report, “consists of a single arm or indicator, which should be about nine feet long and one foot wide, with a cross-piece at one end, about three feet long and one wide; the whole being movable about an axis at its centre.... The movements may be communicated with ease and certainty, either by an endless chain passing over a wheel on the axis, and a wheel in the building; or by a cog-wheel on the axis, and an endless screw on a vertical bar. For night signals, three lamps are used, one swinging beyond the end of the arm, the other two beyond the ends of the cross-piece.”
References.—Gilbert’s Annalen, Vols. XXI for 1805, LV for 1817, LX for 1819; J. H. Voigt’s Magazin, Vol. IV; Grindel’s “Russ. Jahrb. f. Chem. u. Pharm.,” XI, 1810; L. Turnbull, “Elec. Mag. Tel.,” p. 19; “Naturwiss. Abhandl. aus Dorpat.,” I, 1823; “Roy. Soc. Cat. of Sc. Papers,” Vol. IV. pp. 765–767; Annales de Chimie, Vol. XLII, 1829, pp. 42–45, and Vol. XLVI, 1831, p. 361; “Mém. sixième série Sc. Mathém.,” first part of Vols. III and V; “Pander’s Beitr. z. Naturk, I.”
A.D. 1802–1806.—Berzelius (Baron Jöns Jacob Freiherr von), M.D., one of the greatest of modern chemists, native of East Gothland, Sweden, publishes his “De Electricitatis ...” or “Physical Researches on the Effect of Galvanism upon Organized Bodies,” which established his reputation as an experimental philosopher and procured for him the appointment of Assistant Professor of Medicine, Botany and Chemical Pharmacy at Stockholm. Of the very great number of scientific papers which he communicated to learned Societies, that entitled “An Essay on the Division of Salts through Galvanism” deserves especial mention, for in it, he lays down the electro-chemical theory, the honour of being the original propounder of which is by many claimed for Sir Humphry Davy.
In conjunction with Gottlieb Gahn, with W. Hisinger, of Elfstorps Bruk, and with the Swedish physician, Magnus Martin de Pontin, Berzelius made many very extensive observations and published numerous treatises, the most important of which are embraced in the papers named at foot (Sir Humphry Davy, “Bakerian Lectures,” London, 1840, more particularly at pp. 13, 20, 109, 111, 122–123).
As has been before observed, the brilliant investigations of Berzelius and Hisinger, together with those of Nicholson and Carlisle, of Dr. William Henry and of Sir Humphry Davy, actually created a new epoch in the history of chemistry. Prof. Wm. B. Rogers better expressed the fact in his address of Jan. 16, 1879, when saying that “through the labours mainly of Berzelius and of Davy, the great generalization of electro-positive and electro-negative substances was established, and with it the fruitful theory of the electro-chemical exposition of compound bodies.” Such of the experiments of Berzelius as were repeated by Sir Humphry Davy before the English Royal Institution, are embodied in Davy’s paper (partly alluded to above in “Bakerian Lectures”) which was read before the Royal Society, June 30, 1808. According to J. F. W. Herschel, Berzelius and Hisinger ascertained it as a general law, that in all of the chemical decompositions which they effected, the acids and oxygen become transferred to, and accumulated around, the positive pole, and hydrogen, alkaline earths and metals around the negative pole of a voltaic circuit; being transferred in an invisible, and, as it were, a latent or torpid state, by the action of the electric current, through considerable spaces, and even through large quantities of water or other liquid, again to reappear with all their properties at their appropriate resting-places.