2t)8 Mr. Chenevix’s Enquiries concerning the Nature 
not, as was shamefully announced, a new simple metal, but an 
alloy of platina ; and that the substance which can thus mask 
the most characteristic properties of that metal, while it loses the 
greater number of its own, is mercury. 
I confess it was not from an analysis of palladium that I was 
first led to this result ; for I had convinced myself, by synthesis, 
of its nature, and had formed the substance, before I could devise 
any probable method of ascertaining its component parts. 
In reflecting upon the various modifications which substances 
undergo when in union with each other, and on the variations 
produced in the laws of affinity by the intervention of new 
bodies, I was induced to try whether, by the affinity of platina 
with some metal easily reduced, it might not happen, that a 
reduction of both would take place by green sulphate of iron, 
although no such effect were produced upon each metal when 
separate. The most likely to succeed, as being most easily re- 
duced, after gold, platina, and silver, was mercury. I poured 
some solution of green sulphate of iron into a salt of platina, 
and also into a salt of mercury ; no precipitation took place, 
I united the two liquors ; and a precipitate, exactly resembling 
that which is formed by green sulphate of iron in palladium, 
was instantly formed. I collected the precipitate, and exposed 
it to a strong heat; and, after repeated trials, obtained a metallic 
button, not to be distinguished from palladium. 
It certainly is one of the most extraordinary facts respecting 
alloys, that two metals, by their union with each other, should 
so lose the characteristic properties of each individually, that 
neither of them can be immediately detected by the usual 
methods. Nothing but an affinity of the most powerful order 
could produce such effects. But, to place the metals under the 
