Thomson's Sj/stem of Che mist ri/. 137 



Berzelius may be ranked among those scattered stars which 

 preceded the day, but had no influence on the rising of our 

 " philosophic sun," in whose beams they were absorbed. 



The curious facts which Hisinger and Berzehus had observed, 

 •were actually laid down by them, abandoned for many years 

 in an insulated and unproductive state. Sir H. Davy, depart- 

 ing fro' another point, .laid open a similar series of facts, but 

 he traced them out in all their scientitic bearings, and to con- 

 sequences of the most magnificent kind. Galvanism was 

 not a field which the Swedish chemists had explored before 

 the English philosopher chose to enter it ; on the contrary, 

 the latter, as Doctor Thomson well knows, had reaped 

 many laurels on that field, long ere the names of the Swe- 

 dish experimentalists were heard in it. Instead, therefore, 

 of saying, " Sir H. Davy took up the subject where Berzelius 

 and Hisinger laid it down;" Dr. T. would have spoken more 

 truly, had he said, " Berzelius and Hisinger took up the sub- 

 ject where Sir H. Davy laid it down." In Nicholson's Journal 

 for September 1800, a very few months after the discovery of 

 Volta's pile was announced in England, there is a communication 

 from Sir H.Davy, in which we find the following sentence: " Rea- 

 soning on this separate production of oxygen and hydrogen, from 

 different quantities of water, and on the experiments of Mr. 

 Henry, jun., on the action of galvanic electricity on different 

 compound bodies, I was led to suppose, that the constituent 

 parts of such bodies (supposing them immediately decom- 

 posable by the galvanic influence,) might be separately extri- 

 cated from the wires, and in consequence obtained distinct from 

 each other." He then proceeds to detail experiments which 

 prove, that solution of caustic ammonia gives out azote and 

 oxygen at the positive pole, and hydrogen at the negative; 

 while sulphuric acid afforded oxygen at the former, and sul- 

 phur, with sulphuretted hydrogen, at the latter. Every candid 

 person must recognise here the germ of those ideas, which are 

 so admirably developed in his Bakerian Lecture ^of 1806, and 

 which yielded so rich a harvest in his subsequent lectures. 



In fact, Sir H. Davy entered on his electro-chemical career at 

 the earliest possible period. The first article of Nicholson's Journal 

 for November 1800, is an elaborate paper of his " On the causes 

 of the galvanic phenomena, and on certain modes of increasing 

 the powers of the galvanic pile of Volta," not inferior in novelty 

 and interest to any thing published on the subject, except by 

 Volta and himself. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1801, 

 appeared his " account of some galvanic combinations, formed 

 by the arrangement of single metallic plates and fluids." About 

 the same time were published in the Journals of the Royal In- 

 stitution, " Outlines of a view of galvanism, chiefly extracted 

 from a course of leclurcs on the galvanic phenomena, road at 



