Andrew Crosse - The Crosse Water Powered Battery

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This is a home-made version of Crosse's water battery, which was used for charging Quadrant Electrometers and other high voltage and negligible current applications. It consists of a large number (100 in this case) of short glass test-tubes filled with water, and connected to each other by metallic jumpers. The jumpers are bimetallic: one side is copper and the other is zinc. The electrolyte is the water.

Andrew Crosse (1784-1855) was a country gentleman of independent means. He demonstrated his water battery at a meeting of the British Association at Bristol in 1836.

This example is in the apparatus collection of Kenyon College, and is possibly unique.


Reproduced from the pages of
Instruments for Natural Philosophy
by Thomas B. Greenslade, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Physics
Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio

More on Andrew Crosse at:
Fortean Times

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