Anthony Carlisle, William Nicholson 107 



work had earned for him the Fellowship of the Royal 

 Society in 1791, and desirous of showing his appreciation 

 of the honour, he not only contributed an important paper 

 to the Philosophical Transactions in 1793, but announced 

 his latest and greatest discovery in a letter addressed to 

 the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks. That 

 letter bears the date March 20th, 1800, and appears to have 

 been sent in two parts, the second of which was delayed 

 in delivery, so that it could not be read before the meeting 

 of the Society, held on June 26th of the same year. In 

 the meantime, the first part of the letter had been privately 

 communicated to Sir Anthony Carlisle, the celebrated 

 surgeon of Westminster Hospital, and Professor of Anatomy 

 to the Royal Academy. Carlisle was mainly interested in 

 the physiological effects of electricity, and consulted William 

 Nicholson, a man of varied interests, who was employed 

 at different times as an official in the East India Company, 

 a traveller for the firm of Wedgwood, a school teacher and 

 a civil engineer. He had embarked on the publication of 

 a scientific periodical Nicholson's Journal and relates in 

 its fourth volume the important results he obtained by 

 experimenting with the battery constructed according to 

 Volta's directions. When two brass wires connected with 

 the electric poles were immersed in a tube containing water, 

 gas bubbles were seen to rise from one of the wires, while 

 the other became corroded. The gas proved to be hydrogen. 

 On replacing the brass wires by platinum, it was found that 

 oxygen was set free as well as hydrogen ; the electrolytic 

 decomposition of water was thus completely effected. This 

 was the first step in the brilliant series of experiments by 

 which English chemists and physicists traced the connexion 

 between chemical and electric action. But we must here 

 interrupt our account, and turn for a moment to another 

 subject. 



The time had come when the correlation between the 

 various physical manifestations, such as light, heat and 

 power, forced itself into the foreground. The production of 

 heat by mechanical means was effected on a convincing scale 

 by Benjamin Thompson, better known as Count Rumford, 

 who had entered the service of Bavaria for the purpose of 



