8 Biography of Berzelius. 
livered upon the occasion of his vacating the presidentship of the 
Stockholm Academy of Sciences. It is there the custom annu- 
ally to select from among the members of the Academy, a new 
president, who, in vacating his office, must deliver a scientific 
dissertation, which is printed. This is, indeed, frequently the 
the greatest importance. They were on the reduction of silica, 
and the composition of cast iron. 
Ithough Berzelius had succeeded in obtaining the metals of 
the alkaline earths in combination with mercury, by means of 
the voltaic pile, he was unable to separate in a similar manner the 
ical of silica from its oxygen. In order, however, to satisfy 
himself that silica had a composition similar to the earths, he in- 
stituted a series of interesting experiments for the purpose of 
uniting the radical of silica with metals, especially iron, by mix- 
ing iron filings with carbon and silica, and exposing the whole to 
e 
contained, together with silicium, carbon. He then found ap- 
proximately the quantity of oxygen present in silica, by esti- 
mating the quantity of iron and carbon, the latter certainly by a 
somewhat unsafe method. ‘The remark which he makes at the 
close of his paper, published in 1810, is well worthy of notice. 
After having described his numerous experiments on the quantity 
of oxygen in silica, which throughout had not given very closely 
corresponding results, he concludes with these words: “I con- 
the present time to perceive either theoretical or practical advan- 
tage to be gained by this accuracy.” A few years later he would 
not have expressed himself in this manner. 
nother investigation important for this period related to the 
composition of crude iron. At the commencement of the pres- 
acids, less hydrogen was obtained than with an equal weight of 
malleable iron. Berzelius proved that in this case an oleaginous 
hydrocarbon was produced, and shewed, with the greatest cer- 
* - . . * a 
directly, by dissolving the iron through the agency of chlorid of 
