GALLOWAY. A kind of S-rech net more than fourteen hands high. GALVANIC BAITERY. An apparans which is employed in aocumulating the elec tricity of galvanism by the mutual agencies of certain metallic and carbonaceous substan ces and peculiar fluids. See GALVANISM. This battery, as represented underneath, con sists of pieces of zinc, silver, and wet cloth, disposed in threes alternately, to the number of twenty or thirty triplicates, as may be thought proper.
GALVANISilL A branch of the science of electricity, first discovered accidentally by Galvant, a professor of Bologna, from whom it desires its name. This science treats of the effects of applying metals to the nerves and muscles of dead animals, which has teen found to produce strong coutraaions andconsultions. The first obfuscation on this extraordinary ef fart of electricity was made in the laboratory of NL Ggrani, when one of his araistants hap pened to bring the point of his scalpel to the aural nerves of a skinned frog IciKg near the conductor, upon which the muscfea of the limb were agitated with strong consokient Ma dame Galvani, who was present at the time, was struck with the circumstance, and COM immicated it instantly to M. Galmni, who re peated the experiment, and found that the con. yulsion only took place when a spark was drawn from the conductor as the time the scalpel was in contact with the nerve. After this, Galvani continued his experiments in vs. runs ways, and ascertained that the mese agency of metallic subsists-et, provided they were dissimilar metals, would produce such convulsions. This subject en gaged the atten tion of experimentalists both before and after the death of M. Galvani, which happened in 1798 ; but none added any thing materially to his discovery except AL Volta, who repeated the ripe, meets of the former, and found that when two pieces of metal of different kinds were placed in different parts of an animal, and were either brought into contact or into connexion by means of a meta is arc, maid Fiala; ensued every time, and that this effect was strongest when the metals were zinc and silver, particularly when several pairs of me tals were employed, having threes of moist cloth between them. This led him to the idea
of mff,--naing a battery, for the purpose of accumolatig clearway, which has mom been called the vane battery , or voltaic pile. The vpsi. first made by Volta, in 1S00, of a certain number of pairs of zinc and silver plates, separated from each other by pieces of wet cloth, in the order of zinc, silver, wet cloth, ADC, silver, wet cloth, in regular muse ion. The silver plates were chiefly pieces of coins, the plates of sine and the preen of wet cloth being oldie mine sine. He found this much more powerful when the pieces of cloth were moistened with a solution of common sack instead of pure water, and an prepared was found to of giving a very smart sho-fi lar to that of a small electric jar; and this ef fect took place as often as a comonmication was made between each end of the pile, and as long as the pieces of cloth remained moist : an improvement wan made on this apparatus by Mr. Crukkahank, of Woolwich, which was denominated agalvanic trough, and consistsof a box of baked wood, m which plates of copper, or of silver and zinc, soldered together at their edges, are cemented in such a manner as to leave a number of water-tight cells, oar responding to the number of the series ; this serves to remedy the defect of the voltaic pile, which, on account of the loss of moisture, loses its electrical action in a few days ; but by Mr. Cruickshank's connivance its activity may be renewed by filling the cells with the proper saline fluid.