QO On some new Electrochemical Researches 



earths, with oils, to form soaps ; and of the earthy soaps, 

 some are equally insoluble with the metallic soaps. The 

 oxide of tin, and other oxides abounding in oxygen, ap- 

 proach very near in their general characters to zircon, silex, 

 and alumine ; and in habits of amalgamation, and of alloy, 

 how near dp the metals of the alkalies approach to the 

 lightest class of oxidable metals ! 



It will be unnecessary, I trust, to pursue these analogies 

 any further, and I shall conclude this section by a few re- 

 marks on the alloys of the metals of the common earths. 



It is probable that these alloys may be formed in many 

 metallurgical operations, and that small quantities of them 

 may influence materially the properties of the compound 

 jn which they exist. 



In the conversion of cast into malleable iron, by the 

 process of blooming, a considerable quantity of glass se- 

 parates^ which, as far as I have been able to determine, 

 from a coarse examination, is principally silex, alumine, 

 and lime, vitrified with oxide of iron. 



Cast iron from a particular spot will make only cold- 

 short iron ; whilst, from another spot, it will make hot- 

 short ; but by a combination of the two in due propor- 

 tions, good iron is produced ; may not this be owing to 

 the circumstance of their containing different metals of the 

 earths, which in compound alloy may be more oxidable 

 than in simple alloys, and may be more easily separated 

 by combustion ? 



Copper, M. Berzelius informs me, is hardened by sili- 

 cium. In some experiments that I made on the action of i 

 potassium and iron on silex, the iron, as I have mentioned 

 before, was rendered white, and very hard and brittle, but 

 it did not seem to be more oxidable. Researches upon 

 this subject do not appear unworthy of pursuit, and thev 

 may possibly tend to improve some of our most important 

 manufactures, and give new instruments to the useful arts. 



V. Some Considerations of Theory illustrated by new 

 Facts. 



Hydrogen is the body which combines with the largest 

 proportion of oxygen, and yet it forms with it a neutral 

 compound. This, on the hypothesis of electrical energy, 

 would show that it must be much more highly positive 

 than any other substance ; and therefore, if it be an oxide, 

 it is not likely that it should be deprived of oxygen by any 

 simple chemical attractions. The fact of its forming a 

 substance approaching to an acid in its nature, when com- 



binet| 



