s lost 2.53
each, or 50.6 in all; and forty pairs lost on an average 2.21, or 88.4
altogether. In both these cases, therefore, increase of numbers had not
been advantageous as to the effective production of _transferable chemical
power_ from the _whole quantity of chemical force_ active at the surfaces
of excitation (1120.).

1153. But if I had used a weaker acid or a worse conductor in the
volta-electrometer, then the number of plates which would produce the most
advantageous effect would have risen; or if I had used a better conductor
than that really employed in the volta-electrometer, I might have reduced
the number even to one; as, for instance, when a thick wire is used to
complete the circuit (865., &c.). And the cause of these variations is very
evident, when it is considered that each successive plate in the voltaic
apparatus does not add anything to the _quantity_ of transferable power or
electricity which the first plate can put into motion, provided a good
conductor be present, but tends only to exalt the _intensity_ of that
quantity, so as to make it more able to overcome the obstruction of bad
conductors (994. 1158.).

1154. _Large or small plates._[A]--The advantageous use of large or small
plates for electrolyzations will evidently depend upon the facility with
which the transferable power of electricity can pass. If in a particular
case the most effectual number of plates is known (1151.), then the
addition of more zinc would be most advantageously made in increasing the
_size_ of the plates, and not their _number_. At the same time, large
increase in the size of the plates would raise in a small degree the most
favourable number.

[A] Gay-Lussac and Thenard, Recherches Physico-Chimiques, tom, i. p. 20.

1155. Large and small plates should not be used together in the same
battery: the small ones occasion a loss of the power of the large ones,
unless they be excited by an acid proportionably more powerful; for with a
certain acid they cannot transmit the same portion of electricity in a
given time which the same acid can evolve by action on the larger plates.

1156. _Simultaneous decompositions._--When the number of plates in a
battery much surpasses the most favourable proportion (1151--1153.), two or
more decompositions may be effected simultaneously with advantage. Thus my
forty pairs of plates (1124.) produced in one volta-electrometer 22.8 cubic
inches of gas. Being recharged exactly in the sa