Thus we see that the steam engine is driven by the
same force which produces the phenomena accredited to electricity.
I have already shown that in what we term combustion not a particle of
the ponderable matter is annihilated. Combustion is but a phenomenon
resulting from a rearrangement of the particles, and so it is with the
imponderable physical force caloric; it is not consumed when light and
heat are produced, nor converted into power, as we are sometimes told.
But whatever the phenomena produced, the aggregate amount of static
and dynamic caloric is always and ever the same.
If we consider the Ritter-Plant-Faure-Battery, which is mentioned as
storing electricity, we find that the phenomena exhibited by the use
of this apparatus are produced by the same factor. The battery is
composed of two sheets of lead, which are covered with a layer of
minium (Pb3O4). The sheets are laid one upon the other with an
intervening layer of felt. The pack is then rolled up in a spiral form
and placed in a vessel containing acidulated water. One of the plates
is connected with the positive, and the other plate with the negative
pole of a battery or generator.
When the current of electricity enters the battery, the Pb3O4 on the
positive plate is reduced to Pb, and the oxygen so set free attacks
the Pb3O4 on the negative plate, and oxidizes it to PbO2.
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