What electrical stack did Faraday build in his first recorded experiment?

Michael Faraday’s first recorded experiment involved building a voltaic pile.

He assembled the early battery from seven British halfpenny coins, seven discs of sheet zinc, and six pieces of paper moistened with salt water. The alternating materials produced a chemical source of continuous electric current, following the battery design introduced by Alessandro Volta.

Faraday used the pile to pass current through a solution of magnesium sulfate and observed its decomposition. The experiment was recorded in a letter to Benjamin Abbott dated 12 July 1812, when Faraday was still a young, largely self-taught investigator.

A voltaic pile is not the same as a Leyden jar: the pile is an electrochemical battery, while the Leyden jar stores static charge. A Daniell cell is a later battery design, and a Wimshurst machine generates high voltage through electrostatic induction rather than chemical reactions.