NOTE. 

 The following interesting communication to the Editor, from Pro- 

 fessor Hall, of the State of Vermont, came too late to be inserted 

 in a more proper place. 



Dear Sir, 



I HAVE lately received a letter from Sir 

 Charles Blagden, formerly secretary of the Royal Soci- 

 ety of London, in which he gives an account of an im- 

 portant chemical discovery, which Mr. Davy, a lec- 

 turer in the Royal Institution, has recently made. This 

 indefatigable professor has, by means of Volta's galva- 

 nic pile, discovered the bases of potash and soda. 

 " He has obtained them, separately," says Sir Charles, 

 " and they look like metals, both in their solid and fluid 

 form. They also combine with metals, preserving 

 their metallic appearance. With oxygen they recom- 

 pose potash and soda." 



The French chemists, with eagerness, caught this in- 

 telligence, repeated the necessary experiments, and 

 found a result similar to that of Mr. Davy. Messrs. 

 Thinard and Guy-Lussac, two of the most persevering 

 and distinguished chemists of the age, have continued 

 to torture these substances in a variety of ways, and 

 have, at length, learned, that they can be decomposed 

 by a chemical process, without the aid of galvanism. 

 The decomposition is effected by combining these alka- 

 lies with carbon and iron, by means of a very high tem- 



