116 DAVY. 



two fixed alkalis both yielded in this process metallic 

 bases ; but that of potash had alone the quality of 

 combustion at the temperature of 150, and it was, 

 though a metal, lighter than water in the proportion 

 of 97 to 100. When thrown into water in the air, it 

 detonates and burns with violence, forming a solution 

 of potash. The metal from soda is still lighter, being 

 to water as 86 to 100 ; but it does not so easily unite 

 with oxygen, though it decomposes water with a hiss- 

 ing noise, and makes with it a solution of soda. To 

 these metals the discoverer gave the name of potassium 

 and sodium. The glory of having now made the 

 greatest discovery of the age was plainly Davy's ; and 

 it was not the result of happy accident, but of labori- 

 ous investigation, conducted with a skill and a patience 

 equally admirable, and according to the strict rules of 

 the soundest philosophy. He had indeed begun by 

 discovering the laws of electrical action, and had thus 

 formed the means of his new discovery, which was 

 the fruit of the science he had founded, as Newton's 

 theory of dynamics and of astronomy was the fruit of 

 the calculus which he had so marvellously discovered 

 when hardly arrived at man's estate. 



The wonder excited by the strange bodies with 

 which philosophers were thus brought acquainted, was 

 of course in part owing to their novel and singular 

 properties, which formed no part of the discoverer's 

 merits, yet might be reckoned as the perquisites of his 

 genius. His praise would have been the same if in- 

 stead of at once discovering the alkalis to be oxides, 

 and the metal forming the base to be one lighter than 

 water, or bees'-wax or box-wood, and the other to burn 

 unheated in the open air, he had only shown those 

 salts to be oxides of well-known metals. Yet, as his 

 investigation had been crowned with the discovery of 

 strange substances, metallic, and yet like no other 

 metals, we justly admire the more, and the more 

 thank him for his double service rendered to science. 



