Electrical effects are exhibited by the same bodies, when acting as masses, which produce chemical phenomena when acting by their particles; it is not therefore improbable that the primary cause of both may be the same, and that the same arrangements of matter, or the same attracting powers, which place bodies in the relations of positive and negative, i.e. which render them attractive of each other electrically, and capable of communicating attractive powers to other matter, may likewise render their particles attractive, and enable them to combine, when they have full freedom of motion. . . . That the decomposition of the chemical agents is connected with the energies of the pile, is evident from all the experiments that have been made; as yet no sound objection has been urged against the theory that the contact of the metals destroys the electrical equilibrium, and that the chemical changes restore it, and, in consequence, that the action exists as long as the decompositions continue.
The Wollaston battery of two hundred cells was constructed for Davy in 1807, and by it many brilliant researches were performed, which excited the rivalry of foreign savants. Among these were the investigations of Gay-Lussac and Thénard, entitled Recherches Physico-Chimiques, published in 1811, and in which are to be found many remarkable observations on the physical and chemical effects of the voltaic battery.
Davy's brilliant researches with the Wollaston battery caused Napoleon I. to have one constructed in 1813 for the École Polytechnique; and one day the Emperor, when speaking to Berthollet, said: "Pourquoi ces découvertes n'avaient pas été faites en France." "Sire," said Berthollet, "c'est que jusqu'à jour nous n'avons pas possédé de pile voltaïque assez puissante." Napoleon had one constructed with six hundred cells (with elements of
