Necrology.—Sir Humphrey Davy. 157 
Arr. XVII.—Necrology.—Sir Houmpurey Davy.* 
Nor having observed in the British Scientific Journals which have 
reached us since the death of this distinguished benefactor of science, 
any account of his life and death which deserves the name of a bio- 
graphical sketch, we avail ourselves of a brief notice of him, which 
we find in the Geneva Journal, (Bibliotheque Universelle,) of May, 
1829, translated by Prof. Griscom. 
“Sir Humpnrey Davy, who has just terminated at Geneva, his 
brilliant scientific career, was born on the 17th of December, 1778, 
at Penzance, in the county of Cornwall. 
“Tt was at Bristol, while engaged with Dr. Beddoes, in 1799, 
that he first became known to the scientific world, by several i ingen- 
ious memoirs, in a journal entitled West Contributions; and in a 
short time after, he gave to the public his Analysis of Nitric Acid, 
in which various new facts are brought forward, and in which the in- 
dications of genius are clearly discoverable. Called to London by 
the founders of the Royal Institution, among whom was Count Rum- 
ford, he was made professor of chemistry, and his lectures were re- 
ceived with enthusiasm. Having at his disposal the powerful re- 
Sources of that establishment, he availed himself of them in studying 
the new phenomena which the Voltaic apparatus presented, and, in 
his hands, this es agi gave a strong impulse to the — of sci+ 
ence. 
“The limits of this hasty notice do not allow us to trace a phi- 
losopher through his minifold labors ; we can only point out, summa- 
tily, those which are the most remarkable. 
“In 1806, he read to the Royal Society of London, his memoir 
On the Chemical Agencies of Electricity, a memoir which will ever 
constitute an epoch in the science ; and in which he demonstrated 
by a series of facts entirely new, that electricity 3 = axescag chemi- 
cal agent, having the faculty of d tuent 
principles are united by the strongest affinities, and transporting toa 
distance, through moist conductors, these same constituent parts ; the 
most oxigenized substances uniting round the positive pole, while the 
* We are promised for the January number, (1830,) a fuller notice of the eter 
labors and character of Sir H. Davy, but in the meantime, with pleasure, insert t 
Geneyan obituary. 
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