[ 401 ] 



LXI. The Bakerian Lecture for I8O9. On some new 

 Electrochemical Researches on various Objects^ particU' 

 larly the inetaliic Bodies , from the Alkalies ^ and Earths y 

 and on some Combinations of Hydrogen. By Hum- 

 phry Daw, Esq. Sec, R,S. F,R,S. £. M.R.LA.* 



I. Introduction* 



X HAVE employed no inconsiderable portion of the time 

 that has elapsed, since the last session of the Royal Society, 

 in pursuing the train of experimental inquiries on the ap- 

 plication of Electricity to Chemistry, the commencement 

 and progress of which this learned body has done me the 

 honour to publish in their Transactions. 



In this communication I shall, as formerly, state the re- 

 sults. I hope they will be found to lead to some views, 

 and applications, not uncormected with the objects of the 

 Bakerian lecture : and though many of them are far from 

 having attained that precision, and distinctness, which I 

 could'wish, yet still I flatter myself, that they will afford 

 elucidations of some important and abstruse departments 

 of chemistry, and tend to assist the progiress of philoso- 

 phical truth. 



II. Some new Experiments on the Metals from the fixed 

 Alkalies, 



In the paper in which I first made known potassium 

 and sodium to the Royal Society, I ventured to consider 

 these bodies according to the present state of our know- 

 ledge, asundecompounded, and potash and soda as metallic 

 oxides, capable of being decomposed and recomposed, like 

 other bodies of this class, and with similar phsenomena. 



Since that time, various repetitions of the most obvious 

 of the experiments on this subject have been made in dif- 

 ferent parts of Europe. The generality of enlightened 

 chemists have expressed themselves satisfied both with the 

 experiments, and the conclusions drawn from them : but 

 as usually happens in a state of activity in science, and 

 when the objects of inquiry are new, and removed from 

 the common order of facts, some inquirers have given hy- 

 pothetical explanations of the phaenomena, different from 

 those I adopted. 



MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard, as \ have mentioned 



• from JPhilospphical Transactions for 1810, Parti. 



Vol. 35. No, 146. June 1810. C c on 



