220 Notices respecting Ne\a Books. 



geii ; whereas in later years he was amongst the first to insist upon 

 its being simply a mechanical mixture of these gases." Soon 

 after the appearance of the * Researches,' Davy was invited by 

 Count Rumford to the Royal Institution, which had been recently 

 formed under his auspices ; he arrived at the Institution on the Ilth 

 of March 1801, in the capacities of Assistant Lecturer on Chemistry, 

 Director of the Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of the Journal of 

 the Institution : in about six weeks he was appointed Lecturer on 

 Chemistry instead of Assistant ; and in May lb02 he was styled 

 Professor of Chemistry. 



On the 21st of January 1801, Davy gave the introductory lec- 

 ture to the first regular cour.se; this was exceedingly well received 

 by a numerous audience, and was printed ; he had previously given 

 occasional lectures, but this must be considered as the commence- 

 ment of his splendid career. This course of lectures, as appears 

 from a printed syllabus, was divided into three parts : — the che- 

 mistry of ponderable substances ; the chemistry of imponderable 

 substances ; and the chemistry of the arts. From this period he 

 continued regularly to increase in fame and popularity ; his first 

 paper in the Journal of the Royal Institution is entitled ' An Account 

 of a New Eudiometer j' this was simply a small graduated tube di- 

 vided into 100 parts, immersed into a solution of protosulphate or 

 protomuriate of iron, impregnated with nitric oxide : as Dr. Priestley 

 had not only employed this gas as a eudiometrical substance, but 

 had shown the power of sulphate of iron in absorbing it, Dr. Paris 

 very justly remarks, that this test " can only be regarded as a con- 

 venient modification of that of Priestley, in which nitrous gas was 

 presented to the atmospheric air to be examined, without the inter- 

 vention of any third body." 



The Royal Institution Journal contains several other communica- 

 tions from him, under the titles of ' Observations on different me- 

 thods of obtaining Gallic Acid;' ' On the Processes of Tanning, 

 &c.' All the new facts were embodied in an elaborate memoir, and 

 read before the Royal Society, of which he was elected a Fellow on 

 the 17th of November, 1803 ; in 1801 he had communicated to the 

 Society his first paper, entitled ' An Account of some Galvanic Com- 

 binations, formed by single metallic plates and fluids, analogous to 

 the Galvanic Apparatus of M. Volta." After this followed the paper 

 to which we have above alluded, and then ' An Account of some 

 Analytical E.vperiments on a Mineral Production from Devonshire, 

 consisting principally of Alumina and Water.' The Rev. William 

 Gregor had detected the presence of fluoric acid in this substance. 

 " The subsequent experiments of Berzelius, however," Dr. Paris 

 remarks, " cleared away the obscurity in which the subject was still 

 involved. He showed that this mineral not only contained in its 

 composition a small portion of the neutral Jluntc of alumina, but he 

 demonstrated the presence of a subphosphate of that earth, to no in- 

 considerable amount. Much has been said of the error committed 

 on this occasion by Davy, in overlooking thirty-three per cent, of 

 phosphoric acid ; but the phosphate of alnminn is a body that might 



very 



