116 Mr. Vaxkes' additional Observations 



lightening the public not for the purpose of making the best 



apology they could to Messrs. Severn and Co. for the obscurity 

 in which they had involved the question between them and the 



Insurance Offices not for the purpose of making any apology 



to the Directors of the Insurance Offices for having, by means 

 of fallacious experiments and illusive speculations, induced 

 them to entail upon themselves enormous expenses in trying in 



the courts of law the validity of the claims of the insured not 



for the purpose of apologizing to Mr. Wilson for the pecuniary 

 losses which they had occasioned to him by the unmerited odium 



which they had cast upon his Patent-invention not for the 



purpose of apologizing to the Philosophical Public for the uncer- 

 tainty and temporary disgrace which their proceedings had cast 



upon the science of chemical philosophy not for the purpose 



of explaining why they were induced to operate with apparatus so 



totally dissimilar to the original apparatus nor for the purpose 



of detailing some experiments and results, until then untold, 

 which had tended to mislead themselves and their employers 

 but they have laboured solely with the vain hope of in- 

 juring an individual for the part he had taken to discover 

 where the truth lay, and to make that truth manifest to the 

 public. 



Having now nearly finished what I intended, I earnestly call 

 upon these Associates to ask themselves seriously, whether 

 they ought not to make ample apologies, and give satisfactory 

 explanations to all parties concerned ; for I can assure them, 

 the Scientific Public will require it ; unless they can make 

 such an exhibition of new, pertinent, unanswerable, and con- 

 clusive experiments as will carry conviction to the minds of 

 all, that their opinions were founded in truth — and ours in 

 error. 



But, if the experiments of these Associates have already 

 elicited any new facts to enrich the Science of Chemistry ; — if 

 their investigations have in any way tended to illustrate the 

 case for which they were undertaken, the experimenters have 

 been most unfortunate indeed. Like Cassandra, they have 



