1822.] Sixth Edition of his System of Chemistry. 257 



have been spared. These two sentences are as follows : 

 " These and many other topics will find their place in another 

 work, which I intend to publish hereafter, on Electricity and 

 Galvanism. In the present work, I think, they would be impro*- 

 perly introduced, as they would divert our attention too long" 

 from the proper phenomena of Chemistry."— (System, i. 172.) 



This work, for which I have made considerable preparations, 

 would have appeared before this time, had my professional duties, 

 which are very laborious, left me sufficient time to arrange it 

 for the press. When it appears, our Reviewer will haveanothef 

 opportunity of displaying his talents for abuse. ' 



5. I am accused of having ascribed the first accurate experi- 

 ments on chlorine to Gay-Lussac and Thenard ; though I was 

 well aware that they had been made by Davy. 



It is somewhat singular, and shows clearly the motives by 

 which this writer was actuated, that his own statement proves 

 to a demonstration that my account is correct. To be satisfied 

 of this, the reader has only to turn his attention to the dates of 

 the papers respectively pubHshed. 



On the 15th of December, 1808, a paper was begun to be read 

 to the Royal Society, by Sir H. Davy, entitled, " An Account 

 of some new Analytical Researches on the Nature of certain 

 Bodies." The reading of this paper occupied two evenings^ 

 In it Davy quotes repeatedly a number of the Moniteur 

 for the 27th May, 1808, which contained an abstract of the 

 experiments of Gay-Lussac and Thenard. He even mentions 

 some of their attempts to decompose chlorine ; though the most 

 important of their experiments on muriatic acid and chlorine 

 could not have been in that Moniteur, as they were not read to 

 the Institute till the 27th February, 1809. 



Now the eighth section of this paper contains Davy's 

 researches and opinions concerning muriatic acid before he was 

 aware of the experiments of Gay-Lussac and Thenard. He 

 made various attempts to decompose muriatic acid without suc- 

 ceeding; and concluded from his experiments that muriatic acid 

 gas, when as dry as it could be made, contained the third of 

 its weight of water. After relating many attempts which he 

 had made to decompose muriatic acid, and which, though 

 unsuccessful, exhibited many curious and highly important 

 results, he concludes in the following manner, which the 

 Reviewer has misquoted : 



*' There is, however, much reason for supposing that in the 

 singular phenomena of inflammation and detonation that have 

 been described, the muriatic acid cannot have been entirely 

 passive ; audit does not seem unfair to infer, that the transfer of 

 its oxygen, and the production of a novel substance, are con- 

 nected with such effects, and that the highly inflammable 

 nature of the new compounds partly depends upon this circum- 

 ^ew Series y vol. iii. s 



