~ 1808.) 
Her priestly train the tools of torment brings, 
Racks, wheels and crosses, faggots, stakes, 
and strings ; » 
Scaffolds and cages round her altar stand, 
Ana, tipt with sulphur, waves her flaming 
brand. 
Her imps of inquest round the Fiend advance, 
Suspectors grave, and spies with eyd askance, 
Pretended heretics who worm the soul, 
And sly confessors with their secret scroll, 
Accusers hired, for eacli conviction paid, 
Judges retain’d, and witnesses by trade. 
Dragg’d from: a thousand jails her victim 
trains, 
Jews, Moors, and Christians, clank alike 
their chains, 
Read their known sentence in her fiery eyes, 
And breathe to heaven their unavailing cries; 
Lash’dson the pile their writhing bodies turn, 
And, veil’din doubling smoke, begin to burn. 
‘Where the flames open, lo! their limbs in vain 
Reach out for help, distorted by the pain ; 
‘Till folded in the fires they disappear, 
And not a sound invades the startled ear.” 
(To be concluded in our next.) 
‘ —— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N your Magazine for July you have 
favoured the public with a descrip- 
tion and an engraving of “ Professor 
Davy’s great Galvanic Apparatus, with 
which he has effected the decomposition 
of the alkalies.” 
Fromm this description it might be sup- 
posed, that it was by means of this ap- 
paratus, and in consequence of its pow- 
ers that this illustrious chemist attained 
success In the new researches he has in- 
stituted with respect to the decomposi- 
tion of bodies, supposed to be simple; 
which, in fact, is not the case, 
_ I have had the pieasure of attending 
the last two courses of lectures delivered 
hy Professor Davy, at the Royal Insti- 
tution; and [ remember that the decom- 
position of the alkalies, aud of some of 
-the alkaline earths, was etfected, before 
the battery described in the Monthly Ma- 
gazine was in existence. 
Tn referring to the Bakerian lecture 
for 1807, I find that the apparatus made 
use of for decomposing potash and soda, 
consisted of a battery of 150 plates’ of 
four inches, and of six inches; aud in ex- 
-amining the experiments detailéd in the 
Bakerian lecture for 1806, it appears that 
the same combination was used ‘in the 
researches respecting the electricat ener- 
ies of different bodies, and the decom 
position of saline substances. 
I think it mght that these circums 
statices should be made known to scien- 
tific persons, as otherwise it might be 
supposed, that jnyestigations of thig kind 
1) 
On the New Electrical Discoveries. 
409 
cannot be pursued execpt by employing 
a very expensive and complicated appa- 
ratus; whereas, as far as L could learn 
from Mr, Dayy’s lectures, the principal 
objects which be boped to attam, by a 
great.enlargement of the apparatus, were 
to render the results more distinct, to 
procure quantities of the new substances 
suiicient to einpiay i Common chemical 
experiments, and to ascertain buw far 
the powers of electrical decomposition 
were capable of being extended. 
‘The mere fact of the analysis of the 
alkalies, and alkaline earths, has ap- 
peared so astonishing to scientific persons 
in general, that they seem to have paid 
very little attention to the steps which 
led to this discovery; and the general 
method of investigation, to which alone 
Mr, Davy owes this particular result, 
seems to have been overlooked, though 
it appears to offer a rich produce of new 
and important phenomena. 
Mr. Davy, led by the delusive expe- 
riments of Messrs. Pacchioni, Peele, and 
Sylvester, to cuguire ifmuriatic acid, and 
fixed alkalies, were formed by electricity 
from water, -was gradually carried on to 
the discovery of tacts;which proved that 
electricity was a general agent of de- 
composition, that diilerent bodies were 
naturally in different electrical states, 
and that by altering these states, their 
aflinities were altered; and that combi- , 
nations or separations of elements were 
wholly influenced by electrical powers. 
He found likewise that all bodies, con- 
taining an excess of oxygene, were na- 
turally negative, and that all bodies (of ~ 
known composition) containing an excess 
of inflammable matter, were naturally 
positive. ’ 
‘The fixed alkalies, and alkaline earths, 
were positive, but their composition was 
unknown, He inferred, from strict an- 
alogy, that they must contain inflam- 
mable matter; and by using the most 
powerful, means for, detecting inflam- 
mable matter in them, he showed that 
the analogy was perfectly correct. 
The Bakerian, lecture for 1806 ap- 
pears, to me a) modal for philosophical 
research; the results stated in the Bake- 
rian lecture, for, 1807,,,are merely, the 
consequence of prior investigations, they 
are, nore impressive to the unintormed, 
more astonishing to the chemists; but in 
my humJde opinion, less important to,the, 
philosopher, .in as much pas, single facts, 
however curious and novel, are less jmp, 
porlantithan a grand gengral principle, , 
Octover 18, 1808, 1h QUIS OECe,, 
' ‘* ExectrRopainus, 
os P awake 
