Ill 
P latino, and Mercury upon each other. 
with minute accuracy the process which I had recommended 
as the best. He precipitated a mixed solution of platina and 
mercury by a solution of green sulphate of iron ; and after 
varying the subsequent operations, to which he submitted the 
product he had obtained by this method, he was led to the 
following important conclusions amongst others of less conse- 
quence. ist, That two metals, the separate solutions of which 
are not acted upon by a third body, may be acted upon, and 
even reduced to the metallic state, by that same body when 
presented to them in one and the same solution. 
sdly. That mercury is capable of entering into combination 
with platina so, that it cannot afterwards be separated by fire. 
From the first of these conclusions it is evident, that metals in 
their metallic state are not incapable of chemical action upon 
each other ; and from the second, that mercury can be fixed 
(it is purposely that I use the alchemical expression) by 
platina. 
In addition to the chemists abovementioned, I must name 
two more who in Germany have been occupied by palladium. 
M. Tromsdorff, in a letter to the authors of the journal 
already quoted, mentions his having made some fruitless at- 
tempts to form this combination; and M. Klaproth, in a letter 
to M. Vauquelin published in the Annales de Chimie , for 
Ventose, an 12, likewise says that he could not succeed in 
producing palladium. 
Mess. Rose and Gehlen, as well as M. Richter, had con- 
ceived from my Paper a reliance on the success of their 
experiments, which no words of mine had authorised, and 
have accused me of enforcing the truth of my results with a 
degree of certainty which their observations do not countenance. 
