ji- Electrochemical Researches on 



Many difficulties however occurred in. the way of obtain- 

 ing complete evidence on this subject : and the pursuit of 

 the inquiry has required much labour and a considerable de- 

 votion of time, and has demanded more refined and com- 

 plicated processes than those which had succeeded with the? 

 fixed alkalis. 



The earths, like the fixed alkalis, are non-conductors 6? 

 electricity ; b,ut the fixed alkalis become conducting by fu- 

 sion : the infusible nature of the earths, however, rendered 

 it impossible to operate upon them in this state : the strong 

 affinity of their bases for oxygen, made it unavailing to act 

 upon them in solution in water; and the only methods that 

 proved successful, were those of operating upon them by 

 electricity in some of their combinations, or of combining 

 them at the moment of their decomposition by electricity, 

 in metallic alloys, so as to obtain evidences of their nature 

 and properties. 



I delayed for some time laying an account of many of the 

 principal results which I obtained before the Society, in the 

 hopes of being able to render them more distinct and satis- 

 factory; but rinding that for this end a more powerful bat- 

 tery, and more perfect apparatus than I have a prospect of 

 seeing very soon constructed, will be required, I have ven- 

 tured to bring forwards the investigation in its present im- 

 perfect state ; and I sh;ill prefer the imputation of having 

 published unfinished labours, to that of having concealed 

 any new facts from the scientific world, which may tend to 

 assist the progress of chemical knowledge. 



II. Methods employed for Decomposing the alkaline Earths. 

 Barytes, strontites, and lime, slightly moistened,, were 



sertion of Tondi and Ruprecht, that the earths might be reduced by char- 

 coal ; and the accurate researches of Klaproth and Savaresi, who proved bv 

 the most decisive experiments, that the metals taken for the bases of th« 

 earths were phosphurets of iron, obtained from the bone ashes and other 

 materials employed in the experiment, Annates de Chimic^ vol. viil p. 18> 

 and voL x. p. 257, 275. Amidst all these hypotheses, potash and soda were 

 never considered as metallic in their nature : Lavoisier supposed them* to con- 

 tain azote ; nor at th it time were there any analogies to lead that acute 

 philosopher to a happier conjecture. 



electrified 



