231 



ON THE NEW METALS. 



weight of muriate of lime, that this salt, on being dissolved 

 in water, deposited a black substance on the filter, which 

 indicated the decomposition of a small quantity of alcohol ; 

 but this black matter was too little to be weighed, and from 

 this result and the preceding we may conclude, that the 

 quantity of alcohol decomposed is so small, as safely to be 

 neglected. 



(To be continued in our next J 



XV. 



Letter on the Subject of the new Metah. By Mr. A. CqmbBS. 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 

 Sir, 



JLN your Journal for August is a paper by Mr, W. Cooke, New metal 

 of Wolverhampton, in which he states it as his opinion, that supposed to be 

 the new metal, obtained from potash by professor Davy, is 

 not a simple body, but a compound of hidrogen, electrical 

 fluid, and potash. 



If Mr. W. Cooke had taken the trouble to read the ela- Thisanunwar- 

 borate and refined experiments in Mr. Davy's paper (which ^^^^-^ op^- 

 be might have done, as it has appeared in your Journal) he 

 certainly would never have formed so crude and unwarranted 

 an opinion (which by the by is not original ; but has been though not 

 stated before by Dr. Harrington of Carlisle, in the Gentle- new. 

 mans' Magazine for July, except that the Doctor substitiltes 

 the word phlogiston for hidrogen). Mr. W. Cooke would 

 have seen in Mr. Davy's paper, that water is not essential to 

 the production of the inflammable basis of potash ; and that, 

 by burning in air, it does not produce a solution of potash, 

 or moist potash, as it ought to do on his supposition, but 

 pure dry solid potash. 



Having criticised Mr. W. Cooke's criticisrn on Mr. Davy, 

 1 shall beg the liberty of criticising another communication 

 on the same subject. 



In a remark on a letter signed a *' Dilletante," you say, Assertion, that 



(for it seems to come from the editor of the Journal, though ^^^ alkalis 

 ' f haye formerly 



