as this. And there is also another beautiful result dependent upon chemical affinity in that fine lead-tree[1], the lead growing and growing by virtue of this power. The lead and the zinc are combined together in a little voltaic arrangement, in a manner far more important than the powerful one you see here, because in nature these minute actions are going on for ever, and are of great and wonderful importance in the precipitation of metals and formation of mineral veins, and so forth. These actions are not for a limited time, like my battery here, but they act for ever in small degrees, accumulating more and more of the results.
I have here given you all the illustrations that time will permit me to show you of chemical affinity producing electricity, and electricity again becoming chemical affinity. Let that suffice for the present; and let us now go a little deeper into the subject of this chemical force, or this electricity—which shall I name first—the one producing the other in a variety of ways. These forces are also wonderful in their power of producing another of the forces we have been considering, namely, that of magnetism, and you know that it is only of late years, and long
- ↑ Page 147. Lead tree. To make a lead tree, pass a bundle of brass wires through the cork of a bottle, and fasten a plate of zinc round them just as they issue from the cork, so that the zinc may be in contact with every one of the wires. Make the wires to diverge so as to form a sort of cone, and having filled the bottle quite full of a solution of sugar of lead, insert the wires and cork and seal it down, so as to perfectly exclude the air. In a short time the metallic lead will begin to crystalise around the divergent wires, and form a beautiful object.
