THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN CHEMISTRY 



ttirv, liberating its oxy gen, and thus isolating its metallic 

 base, which he named potassium. The same thing \vas 

 done with soda, and the closely similar metal sodium 

 was discovered metals of a unique type, possessed 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 discoveries were in- 

 teresting, but aside from that they were of great theo- 

 retical importance, because they showed the compound 

 nature of some familiar chemicals that had been re- 

 garded as elements. Several other elementary earths 

 met the same fate when subjected to the electrical in- 

 fluence, 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 " undecompounded" 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 dis- 

 covered, which exceeds the battery in power as the bat- 

 tery exceeds the blow-pipe? 



Another and even more important theoretical result 

 that flowed from Davy's experiments during th'is first 

 decade of the century was the proof that no elementary 

 substances other than hydrogen and oxygen are produced 

 when pure water is decomposed by the electric current. 

 It was early noticed by Davy and others that when a 

 strong current is passed through water, alkalies appear 

 at one pole of the battery and acids at the other, and 

 this though the water used were absolutely pure. This 

 seemingly told of the creation of elements a transmuta- 

 tion but one step removed from the creation of matter 

 itself -under the influence of the new "force." It was 



263 



