French National Institute. • 133 



tfthly. That oxymuriatic acid has a stronger attraction, 

 for most inflammable bodies than oxygen; and that on 

 the hypothesis of the connexion of electrical powers with 

 chemical attractions, it must be highest in the scale of ne- 

 gative power ; and that the oxygen which has been sup- 

 Sosed to exist in oxymuriatic acid has always been expellee! 

 y it from water or oxides, 



FRENCH NATIONAL INSTITUTE. 



The readers of the Philosophical Magazine must have 

 seen from the accounts which have lately appeared ip our 

 pages, of the labours* of the French chemists, that those 

 gentleman had questioned the accuracy of the inferences 

 drawn by Mr. Davy from the numerous experiments he 

 had made, in the course of his electro-chemical researches, 

 respecting the nature o,f the alkalies and the earths; main- 

 taining that the metallic bodies obtained from these sub- 

 stances, in place of being simple, as asserted by Mr. Davy, 

 were compounds of the respective alkalies and earths with 

 hydrogen; or, in other words, that the new bodies were 

 hydrurets.. Of this opinion were Gay Lussac, Thenard, and 

 most of the French chemists. Berthollet among the rest 

 warmly contested the correctness of Mr. Davy's inferences, 

 and maintained the accuracy of the French conclusions. 

 They have now, however, changed their opinion, and done 

 justice to our countryman. 



At a meeting of the French National Institute in the 

 end of June, Messrs. Gay Lussac and Thenard read a notice 

 containing the results of a great variety of experiments on 

 the new metals ; trom all of which they conclude, after a 

 most rigorous investigation, that professor Davy was per- 

 fectly correct in his inferences, and, with a degree of frank- 

 ness honourable to themselves, renounce their former 

 opinion that these new metals are hydrurets. 



'We cannot but take notice here of an assertion made irv 

 the Report of the Labours of the Institute, (published in a 

 former volume of the Philosophical Magazine,) which sa- 

 vours of a blundering, but probably not intended, pla- 

 giarism. The Report states, that Messrs. Gay Lussac and 

 Thenard discovered the mode of metallizing ammonia by 

 potassium ; whereas these gentlemen themselves, who have 

 more than once uncandidly assumed Mr. Davy's facts, 

 acknowledge this to have been that gentleman's discovery, 

 in their paper on ammonia. 



The result of the present contest, we cannot but hope, 

 will serve as an admonition to the editors of some of our 



periodical 



