402 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



mistry lately published, I have alluded to Dr. Henry in terms 

 which have occasioned a private correspondence between that 

 gentlemen and me, the result of which we are desirous of making 

 public in your Journal. 



In the beginning of August 1816, I transmitted to him an 

 Essay on Alkalimetry and Acidimetry, accompanied by a letter, 

 in which I begged him to favour me with his opinion of its merits, 

 cautioning him, meanwhile, not to communicate its contents to 

 any person. In the 8th edition of his Elements, which appeared 

 in 1818, he published apian of alkalimetry and acidimetry mo- 

 dified from that described in my Essay*. This struck me at the 

 time as an unwarranted use of my communication; and declining 

 to correspond with him on the subject, I resolved to seize the first 

 favourable opportunity to reclaim my right>5. Under this feeling 

 I wrote the paragraph in the Introduction to the Dictionary. 



Dr. Henry thus writes me on the 12th of April 1821, " I as- 

 sure you that I had not at the time of publishing my book, nor 

 can I now recall, the remembrance of any injunction of secrecy, 

 respecting your alkalimeter; I conceived I had so expressed my- 

 self at page 512, vol. ii. of my Elements, as unequivocally to 

 give to you the credit of inventing an instrument on the principle 

 of directly, and without calculation, indicating the per centage 

 of alkali in any specimen; and that I pretend to nothing more 

 than the modification of your method which is described in my 

 book." 



Under these circumstances, I am satisfied that Dr. Henry had 

 no intention to appropriate to himself the credit of my invention; 

 but I sincerely regret that, before promulgating the modification 

 of my method, he had not consulted me on the subject. This 

 would have prevented all chance of misunderstanding between 

 me and Dr. Henry, whose accomplishments as a gentleman and 

 a chemist, I have been accustomed to admire. The readers of 

 the Dictionary will perceive under the articles Calculi, Coal- 

 gas, Gas, Salt, &c., that I have not suffered temper to influence 

 my judgment, but have done merited honour to the Doctor's re- 

 searches on every scientific occasion. 



I have the honour to be, Sir, 



Your most obedient servant, 

 Glasgow, April 15, 1821. Andreav Ure. 



* " It has been very properly objected to it [ilie alkalimeter of Descroi- 

 silles] by Dr. Ure, ofGlasgow, (in au Essay on Alkalimetry, which he was 

 so good, about two years ago, as to communicate to me iu mannscript, and 

 which I believe he has not yet published,) that these degrees, being en- 

 tirely arbitrary, do not denote the value of alkalis in language universally 

 intelligible ; and he has proposed an instrument which shall at once, and 

 without calculation, declare the true proportion of alkali in 10:) parts of 

 any specimen. The principal deviation in the following rules from the 

 method of Dr. Ure, is," &c. Sec. 



