172 A Tribute to the Memory of [Sept. 



clephlogisticated marine acid, oxymuriitic acid, and chlorine. 

 Daring several years afterwards, its properties were not applied 

 to any practical use, until its power of discharging vegetable 

 colours suggested to M. Bertliollet of Pari-; its employment in 

 the art of bleaching. The first successful experiments with that 

 view were made bv M. Bertliollet in the year 1786, and with a 

 liberality which confers the highest honour upon him he freely 

 communicated his important results, not only to his philosophical 

 friends, but to those who were likely to be benefited by them in 

 practice. Anions the former was Mr. Watt, of Birmingham, 

 who happened at thai time to be in Paris, and who was the first 

 person in this country to carry the discovery inio effect, by 

 bleaching several bundled pieces of linen by the new process at 

 the works of a relative near Glasgow. Mr. Henry also, having 

 received an indistinct account of the new method, but not know- 

 ing precisely in what it consisted, immediately set about investi- 

 gating the steps of the operation ; and in this he was fortunate 

 enough to succeed. Soon afterwards, an attempt was made by 

 some foreigners, who themselves had acquired their information 

 from Berthollet, to turn the process to their own advantage by 

 obtaining a patent ; and having failed in that, by applying for a 

 parliamentary grant of an exclusive privilege of using it for a 

 certain number of years. Against the former, a strong memorial 

 (which is now before the writer) was presented by Mr. Henry to 

 the Attorney and Solicitor-Generals ; * and effectual opposition 

 was made to the latter, by a public meeting of the inhabitants 

 of Manchester, on the ground that the whole process had been 

 successfully carried into effect by Mr. Watt, Mr. Henry, and 

 Mr. Cooper.t 



Having satisfied himself of the practicability and advantages 

 of the new method of bleaching by carrying it on upon a scale of 

 sufficient extent, Mr. Henry prepared to embark in a much larger 

 establishment for the purpose. The connexion, however, which 

 he entered into with this view having disappointed his just 

 expectations, and the further prosecution of it being inconsistent 

 with his professional employments, he abandoned the project ; 

 and contented himself with imparting the knowledge he had 

 gained to several persons who were already extensively engaged 

 in the practice of bleaching by the then established methods. 



Mr. Henry had now reached a period of life when the vigour 

 of the bodily powers, and the activity of the mind, begin, in most 

 persons to manifest a sensible decay. From this time, however, 



* As this is not the usual way of opposing the grant of a patent, it may be pro- 

 per to stale that the authority, from which 1 learn that the Memorial was actually 

 presented, is a letter from the Solicitor who was employed on the occasion. 



I The reader who is interested in the history of the introduction of chlorine and 

 its compounds into use in bleaching, is referred to a note in Ur. Brewster's Edin- 

 burgh Encyclopedia, art. Bleaching; to Dr. Thomson's Annak of Philosophy, 

 vols. vi. and vii. ; and to the article Bleaching in the Supplement now publish. 

 ingto the Enyelopaedia Britannica. 



