The term Animal Electricity (says Dr. Whewell) has been superseded by others, of which _Galvanism_ is the most familiar; but I think that Volta’s office in this discovery is of a much higher and more philosophical kind than that of Galvani; and it would on this account be more fitting to employ the term _Voltaic Electricity_, which, indeed, is very commonly used, especially by our most recent and comprehensive writers. The _Voltaic pile_ was a more important step in the history of electricity than the Leyden jar had been--_Hist. Ind. Sciences_, vol. iii. No one who wishes to judge impartially of the scientific history of these times and of its leaders, will consider Galvani and Volta as equals, or deny the vast superiority of the latter over all his opponents or fellow-workers, more especially over those of the Bologna school. We shall scarcely again find in one man gifts so rich and so calculated for research as were combined in Volta. He possessed that “incomprehensible talent,” as Dove has called it, for separating the essential from the immaterial in complicated phenomena; that boldness of invention which must precede experiment, controlled by the most strict and cautious mode of manipulation; that unremitting attention which allows no circumstance to pass unnoticed; lastly, with so much acuteness, so much simplicity, so much grandeur of conception, combined with such depth of thought, he had a hand which was the hand of a workman.--_Jameson’s Journal_, No. 106. THE VOLTAIC BATTERY AND THE GYMNOTUS. “We boast of our Voltaic Batteries,” says Mr. Smee. “I should hardly be believed if I were to say that I did not feel pride in having constructed my own, especially when I consider the extensive operations which it has conducted. But when I compare my battery with the battery which nature has given to the electrical eel and the torpedo, how insignificant are human operations compared with those of the Architect of living beings! The stupendous electric eel in the Polytechnic Institution, when he seeks to kill his prey, encloses him in a circle; then, by volition, causes the voltaic force to be produced, and the hapless creature is instantly killed. It would probably require ten thousand of my artificial batteries to effect the same object, as the creature is killed _instanter_ on receiving the shock. As much, however, as my battery is inferior to that of the electric fish, so is man superior to the same animal. Man is endowed with a power of mind competent to appreciate the force of matter, and is thus enabled to make the battery. The eel can but use the specific apparatus which nature has bestowed upon it.” Some observations upon the electric current around the gymnotus, and notes of experiments with this and other electric fish, will be found in _Things not generally Known_, p. 199. VOLTAIC CURRENTS IN MINES.