Volta describes the voltaic pile to the Royal Society

On 20 March 1800, Alessandro Volta wrote to the London Royal Society to describe the technique for producing electric current using his device. The communication was a two-part letter addressed to the president of the Royal Society, reporting experiments Volta had conducted after inventing the pile in 1799, and it was published in 1800. The letter explained that the device was the first electrical battery able to continuously provide an electric current to a circuit, and it demonstrated that electricity could be generated chemically rather than solely by living beings.