Dry-Cell Battery
DimensionsOverall: 30 x 25 x 13.4 cm
Credit LineGift from the Seaborn Family, 1972
Object number1972.033.001
Label TextThis is a dry-cell battery, also known as a Leyden jar. The first Leyden jars were a glass bottle partly filled with water with a wire running into it. Later jars had metal foil wrapped around the inside and outside of the glass and no water. The device was used for both science and popular entertainment. Benjamin Franklin, for example, used one in his famous kite experiment to show that lightning was ordinary electricity. Jars could also be linked up, allowing more charge to be stored. Franklin called these linked jars a battery, but unlike a real battery Leyden jars released all their energy in a single burst. After the invention of batteries as we know them, Leyden jars still served a purpose. At the end of the 19th century they were used in wireless communications.
NameBattery, Dry-Cell
