HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 67 



SECTION III. 



Decomposition of the Alkalies and Earths. 





ABOUT the conclusion of the year 1806, Sir Davy's 

 H. Davy read to the Royal Society of London the 



first of his series of papers on what has been styled 

 the electro-chemical action of bodies, which have 

 been so justly celebrated, no less for the brilliant 

 discoveries of which they give an account, than for 

 the acuteness and sagacity which the author dis- 

 plays in his researches into the most hidden ope- 

 rations of nature. He commences by some Action of 

 remarks on the action of galvanic electricity ffectridty 

 upon water. He notices the experiments in " e p r n 

 which acids and alkalies appear to have been 

 formed in water subjected to the galvanic current ; 

 and he states, that when he employed separate por- 

 tions of water, connected together by slips of 

 bladder, and united by gold wires to the voltaic 

 battery, he obtained nitro-muriatic acid at the 

 positive, and soda at the negative wire. It was, 

 however, conjectured, that the animal matter 

 placed between the two portions of water might 

 contain muriate of soda, and thus afford the sub- 

 stances procured in the experiment ; he therefore, 

 at the suggestion of Dr. Wollaston, substituted 

 asbestos for the slips of bladder. It was also con- 



