30 
Monday , 21 st December 1857. 
Professor Kelland, V.P., read from the Chair the following 
short Biographical Notices of MM. Thenard and Cauchy, 
two recently deceased Foreign Members of the Society. 
In Dr Christison’s excellent address at the last meeting, he pre- 
sented you with biographical sketches of the recently deceased Home 
Members of this Society. I have been requested to complete his 
work, by adding a brief sketch of the lives of the two Foreign Mem- 
bers whom we have lost during the past session. 
1. M. Thenard . — For the information which I have acquired rela- 
tive to this excellent chemist, I am indebted to Dr Christison, who 
has furnished me with his personal recollections, and with a biogra- 
phical souvenir of the deceased by one of his former assistants, M. 
Le Canu. 
The association of the name of Thenard with the progress of Che- 
mistry dates back to the period of history. His first contribution 
to the science was made so early as the year 1799 ; the subject 
being 61 The Oxygenated Compounds of Antimony, and their Com- 
binations with Sulphuretted Hydrogen,” His last was presented 
in 1856, fifty-seven years later, and is entitled “ Memoir on the 
Bodies whose Decomposition is effected under the influence of the 
Catalytic Force.” To detail all the discoveries of an author whose 
writings are scattered over so vast a period would be a work of some 
labour, and might justly be regarded by many of my hearers as a 
dry and unnecessary detail. A few of the more important only can 
be noticed. 
We owe to him the production of muriatic ether. It is true, 
however, that Boullay in France, and Gehlen in Germany, made 
the discovery about the same time with himself. We owe to him 
also the discovery of oxygenated water, or the binoxide of hydrogen, 
and consequently that of the peroxide of calcium, of copper, &c., 
which it produces by reacting on the inferior oxides of these metals. 
M. Le Canu admits, in reference to this discovery, that a happy acci- 
dent exhibited to M. Thenard the dissolution of binoxide of barium 
in water acidulated with nitric acid, without the disengagement of 
