1 58 Necrology. — Sir Humphrey Davy. 



■others are arranged around the negative pole. This new and pow- 

 erful means of analysis soon conducted him to a series of brilliant 

 discoveries. Substances reputed elementary, were discovered to be 

 compound ; the alkalies, alkaline earths, and almost all the other 

 earths, which were reckoned among simple bodies, were ascertained 

 to be oxides of metals before unknown ; and these new metals, on 

 account of their specific levity, constituted an exception to the laws 

 which governed this class of bodies. The consequences of these 

 discoveries were immense ; a new theory, styled electro-chemisiry, 

 was based upon these new facts. 



" In pursuing his researches, Davy found that some substances 

 which were regarded as compound, must be considered as simple, 

 and he was one of the first who discovered that chlorine was a sub- 

 stance not yet decomposed. 



" He endeavored to turn his chemical discoveries to the benefit of 

 agriculture ; and we are indebted to him for a good method of ana- 

 lyzing soils, as well as a treatise on agricultural chemistry replete with 

 the most ingenious views. Humanity received also a benefaction 

 from his hands. His researches led him, in 1815, to discover the 

 singular property possessed by metallic gause, of opposing the trans- 

 mission of flame, and it is to this observation that Vv^e are indebted for 

 the miner's lamp. It is well known that this class of men devoted 

 to labors so painful and dangerous, find in this instrument a means of 

 preservation from one of the most fatal accidents of their profession. 



" At the death of Sir Joseph Banks, Sir H. Da\y succeeded him 

 as President of the Royal Society of London. He had some years 

 before been elected one of the eight foreign associates of the Royal 

 Academy of Science of Paris, and all the principal scientific societies 

 of Europe, ranked him in the number of their correspondents. 



" In travelling through Italy, and during his sojourn at Naples and 

 Rome, he amused himself in studying the substances which the an- 

 cients used as colors in their pictures ; he sought also in chemistry 

 the means of separating more easily the leaves of the Herculaneum 

 manuscripts. He also attempted, not long since, to explain upon 

 his own chemical theories, the phenomena of volcanos. Even his 

 diversions were not useless to science ; the last work which he pub- 

 lished, and which was a treatise on fishing, entitled Salmonia, in- 

 cludes a great number of interesting observations on the manners of 

 fishes, and upon other points of naluial histoiy. 



