S/7i HUMPHREY DA FY. 59 



for 1806, he carried the examination of this subject to a much 

 greater length, and astonished the scientific world by the 

 announcement of a multitude of the most extraordinary results, 

 from the application of the galvanic energy to the composition 

 and decomposition of various chemical substances. From these 

 experiments he arrived at the conclusion, that the power called 

 chemical afifinity was in truth, identical with that of electricity. 

 Hence the creation of a new science, now commonly known by 

 the name of Electro-Chemistry, being that which regards the 

 supposed action of electricity in the production of chemical 

 changes. The discourse in which these discoveries were un- 

 folded was crowned by the French Institute with their first 

 prize, by a decision which reflects immortal honour upon that 

 illustrious body ; who thus forgot not only all feelings of national 

 jealousy, but even the peculiar and extraordinary hostility pro- 

 duced by the war which then raged between the two countries, 

 in their admiration ot genius and their zeal for the interests of 

 philosophy. 



But the results which this great chemist had already obtained 

 only formed, in his hands, the source of new discoveries. In 

 the interesting and extraordinary nature of its announcements, 

 the Bakerian Lecture of 1807 was as splendid a production as 

 that of the former year. There are certain substances, as the 

 reader is aware, known in chemistry by the name of alkalis, ot 

 which potash and soda are the principal. These substances, 

 chemists had hitherto in vain exhausted their ingenuity, and the 

 resources of their art, in endeavouring to decompose. The 

 only substance possessing alkaline properties, the composition 

 of which had been ascertained, was ammonia, which is a gas, 

 and is therefore called volatile alkali ; and this having been 

 found to be a compound of certain proportions of hydrogen and 



