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1812.
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Æt. 20-1.

possessing a coating of copper. In the paper pile not a single zinc plate was affected that way; the copper plates in both piles were covered very considerably with the oxide of zinc. I am aware with you that zinc precipitates copper, and that the metals are oxided, before solution, in acid: but how does that effect their motion from one disc to another in contrary directions? I must trust to your experiments more than my own. I have no time, and the subject requires several.

His third letter to his friend Abbott is dated August 11, 1812. ······ 'I thank you for your electrical experiment, but conceive the subject requires a very numerous series and of very various kind. I intend to repeat it, for I am not exactly satisfied of the division of the charge so as to produce more than one perforation. I should be glad if you would add to your description any conclusion which you by them are induced to make. They would tend to give me a fairer idea of the circumstances.

'I have to notice here a very singular circumstance—namely, a slight dissent of my ideas from you. It is this. You propose not to start one query until the other is resolved, or at least "discussed and experimented upon;" but this I shall hardly allow, for the following reasons. Ideas and thoughts often spring up in my mind, and are again irrevocably lost for want of noting at the time. I fancy it is the same with you, and would therefore wish to have any such objections or unsolved points exactly as they appear to you in their