There is a famous picture of Volta, by Magaud, in Marseilles. It chronicles the fact that Volta had become a Count, a Senator and a Member of the French Institute, so appointed by Napoleon, and that he is in some sense therefore a Frenchman. Magaud has painted him standing, with his electric apparatus on one side and the Scriptures on the other. Near him is placed his friend Sylvio Pellico, whose little book, "My Ten Years' Imprisonment," has endeared him to thousands of readers all over the world. Pellico had doubted the presence of Providence in the world and the existence of a hereafter. In the midst of his doubts, he turned to Volta. "In thy old age, O Volta!" said Pellico, "the hand of Providence placed in thy pathway a young man gone astray. Oh! thou, said I to the ancient seer, who hast plunged deeper than others into the secrets of the Creator, teach me the road that will lead me to the light." And the old man made answer: "I too have doubted, but I have sought. The great scandal of my youth was to behold the teachers of those days lay hold of science to combat religion. For me to-day I see only God everywhere." FOOTNOTES: [19] Wilcke, a Swedish investigator of electric phenomena, constructed in 1762 two machines involving the principle of the electrophorus.--(BROTHER POTAMIAN.) [20] Brother Potamian has called my attention to the fact that Volta's work on the origin of electricity from two different metals when, though connected, they were yet separated by some moist medium, was curiously anticipated by an observation described by Sulzer, in a book called Nouvelle Théorie des Plaisirs, 1767. In this he states that, if a silver and a lead coin, placed one above and the other under the tongue, be brought in contact a sour taste develops, which he considers to be due to vibrations set up by the contact of the two metals. He seems also to have had a dash of light before the eyes, so that all the elements necessary for the discovery of the voltaic pile were in his hands, and indeed he was making what has since become one of the classical experiments, by which certain physiological effects of the electric current are demonstrated. CHAPTER VI. COULOMB.