194 Biography of Berzelius. 



the batteries of Daniell and Grove, he had constructed one 

 of zinc, copper, and two liquids, in such a manner that 

 the zinc was not attacked by the liquid in contact with it, 

 while the copper was briskly oxidised by the other. If now 

 the oxidation of one of the metals were the cause of the elec- 

 tricity, the copper would have been positive, and the zinc 

 negative; consequently the poles of the pile would be reversed. 

 Before the circuit was closed, the copper was violently oxi- 

 dised and dissolved; but, when the poles were connected, this 

 action ceased immediately, and metallic copper was precipitat- 

 ed from the liquid upon the copper plate. This experiment 

 rendered it obvious to Berzelius that chemical activity could 

 not be the cause of the electrical phenomena ; for the former 

 ceased when the poles were connected, and the direction of 

 the current was that indicated by the principle of contact- 

 electricity. These experiments were instituted by Berzelius 

 before many physicists had commenced to adopt the chemical 

 theory of the pile, and especially long before Fechner en- 

 deavoured to prove the truth of the contact theory by his in- 

 genious experiments. 



It was not, however, these experiments with the voltaic 

 pile which alone, or even principally, occupied the attention 

 of Berzelius at the commencement of his career. At the in- 

 stigation of Hisinger, who had a particular partiality for the 

 chemical part of mineralogy, and to whom, as a geognost 

 and mineralogist, Sweden owes so much, Berzelius early 

 directed his attention to the quantitative analysis of minerals. 

 He candidly admitted in after years, that in the first in- 

 stance, when the law of combination in simple definite pro- 

 portions was not yet established, he did this chiefly on 

 Hisinger 1 s account. But the very first result of an in- 

 vestigation of this kind, carried on in conjunction with 

 Hisinger, was of the most brilliant kind : it was the dis- 

 covery of a new metal, Cerium, during the year 1803, in 

 the so-called tungsten of Bastnas, near Biddarhyttan in 

 Westmanland. 



It must be admitted that the discovery of a new metal is 

 often the result of mere chance. But it is not every chemist 

 who is able, even when greatly favoured by chance, to re- 



