192 Biography of Berzelius. 



lies and earths, were carried to the negative pole, and on the 

 contrary, oxygen, acids, and highly oxidised bodies to the 

 positive pole. But what particularly proves the admirable 

 sagacity of Berzelius is the circumstance that he did not 

 allow himself to be led astray by the appearance of the same 

 body, sometimes at the positive, sometimes at the negative 

 pole, as, for instance, the appearance in the decomposition 

 of nitric acid, of nitrogen at the negative, in the decompo- 

 sition of ammonia at the positive pole. It was, on the other 

 hand, clear to him even at that time that the antitheses be- 

 tween the constituents of a chemical compound were only 

 relative, and that one and the same body may behave as a 

 base to a second, and as an acid to a third. 



Three years after Berzelius had made this important in- 

 vestigation public, viz., in 1806, Davy developed similar views 

 in a memoir upon some effects of electricity, which has become 

 very famous. He extended the experiments considerably, 

 prosecuted them with very ingenious apparatus, by means 

 of which he succeeded in disproving many erroneous views 

 as to the effects of the electric pile, which had at that time 

 become general. He particularly explained the peculiar and 

 remarkable mode of the transmission of substances from 

 one vessel into another ; but in his memoir he does not 

 make any mention of the views of Berzelius, which corre- 

 sponded with his own ; and Pfaff, who translated Davy's paper 

 for Gehlen's Journal, felt it necessary to remark that three 

 years previously Berzelius and Hisinger had made known 

 all the fundamental principles which Davy now brought for- 

 ward as entirely new. 



In 1807, Davy received the prize of 3000 francs, offered 

 by the Emperor Napoleon for the best set of experiments 

 made during that year on the subject of galvanism. The 

 merits of Berzelius and Hisinger were unnoticed. 



After Davy had made known, in October 1807, the im- 

 portant discovery of the metallic nature of the alkalies, and 

 thus excited in a high degree the attention of scientific men, 

 Berzelius also occupied himself with the separation of the 

 alkaline metals by means of the voltaic pile. In the spring 

 of 1808 he formed, at the same time as Seebeck, who was then 



