3-1 yhtiun of Pliiiinn and M&:ciirij i/prm each other. 



which intirht never again occur together. In February r80'I;r 

 proh'ssor^Lamixidius, in ilislilling POirre pyritizcd wood,, 

 tijousih witli a difftrent intent, oblaiucd the same substance. 

 As he liaB it now in his power to olTservc the pha-nomena 

 that attended its t'ornruion, he discovered', and has com- 

 municated to tlie world, a method of pi-oducing it which 

 never tails. Since his late paper upon the suUjeet, as the 

 nvcessarv prccausions c:in t>e t'oUowed by every chemist, 

 Nlcssr:*. Clement and Desonnes have obtained that credit 

 trt which their experiments had, in trnth, always been cu- 

 lilled ; and the tbrniation of what professor Lampadius 

 terms his su!i)hur-aleohol is no longer a resuk of chance, 

 or accounted for by being supposed one of those subterfuges 

 to which huiuau pride resorts, in ortier to spare itself the- 

 confesslon of human weakness. 



The observatitm of any new fact becomes a matter ot 

 oencral concern, and truly worthy of pliilosophic contem- 

 plation, tl\cn onlv when its inrtuence is likely to be cxtendecf 

 bevoml the single instance to \\ hich it owes its discovery. 

 ""Aliether water were a simple body or a ccmipound, could 

 have l)een of little impartaufc as an insulated fact ; but, 

 connected with the vast chain of reasoning it gave rise to, 

 it opened a new field for genius to explore. If in the pre- 

 sent case our researches were to be conlined merely to ascer- 

 t-iining whether palladium were a simple metal or a com- 

 }70un'!, all the advantages likely to arise fronj the facts ob- 

 served during the inquiry would be lost ; and an object of 

 the most coniprehensive intt-rest would tmis sink into a 

 controversy Goncerning tlie exi,->l:eiiec of on^- more of those 

 substances which we have di'invficd with the name of ele- 

 ments. It was in this point of view that Messrs. Richter and 

 Kitter considered the subject as ikr as they went, and a few 

 f-(cts are stated in my first pa]>er in support of the opinion 

 that palladium is but a particvilar instanceof a general truth. 



J5v takin-r the reason.ing on this subject, then, in its widest 

 pvtcnt, weshall be led, I think, to the foMowing conclu- 

 "ion, — that metals may exerei.-e ;in action upon each other, 

 wen in their metallic stale, canal)le of so ahering some of 

 their principal properties as to render the presence of one 

 or more of thfm not to be lit itcted by the usual meth.ods. 

 in this is contained the* pusiibiliiv of a compound metal 

 .tpprariug tt) hf. siiiijdc ; but to prove this must be a work 

 of great time and per^evirnnec, and can only be done by 

 eonsidcring singly and successively the different cases which 

 it contains, and by instituting experiment? upon eaehr 

 Whfn an alTmitv which unites tvvo' bodies, and "o blends- 

 1 their 



