CHEMISTRY SINCE TIME OF DALTON 



with its aid the brilliant young experimenter was ex- 

 pected almost to perform miracles. And indeed he 

 scarcely disappointed the expectation, for with the aid 

 of his battery he transformed so familiar a substance 

 as common potash into a metal which was not only so 

 light that it floated on water, but possessed the seem- 

 ingly miraculous property of bursting into flames as 

 soon as it came in contact with that fire-quenching 

 liquid. If this were not a miracle, it had for the popu- 

 lar eye all the appearance of the miraculous. 



What Davy really had done was to decompose the 

 potash, which hitherto had been supposed to be ele- 

 mentary, liberating its oxygen, and thus isolating its 

 metallic base, which he named potassium. The same 

 thing was done with soda, and the closely similar metal 

 sodium was discovered metals of a unique type, pos- 

 sessed of a strange avidity for oxygen, and capable of 

 seizing on it even when it is bound up in the molecules 

 of water. Considered as mere curiosities, these dis- 

 coveries were interesting, but aside from that they were 

 of great theoretical importance, because they showed 

 the compound nature of some familiar chemicals that 

 had been regarded as elements. Several other ele- 

 mentary earths met the same fate when subjected to 

 the electrical influence; the metals barium, calcium, 

 and strontium being thus discovered. Thereafter Davy 

 always referred to the supposed elementary substances 

 (including oxygen, hydrogen, and the rest) as " unde- 

 compounded" bodies. These resist all present efforts 

 to decompose them, but how can one know what 

 might not happen were they subjected to an influence, 

 perhaps some day to be discovered, which exceeds the 



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