Platina and Mercury upon each other. 1 35 
in distilling some substances which contained sulphur and 
charcoal, obtained a liquid product of a peculiar nature. He 
repeated his experiments, but in vain : and after many fruitless 
attempts abandoned his researches, and confined himself to 
stating the fact to the chemical world. Little notice was taken 
of it, and not much interest was excited by an experiment so 
likely to fail. Some time after this Mess. Clement and Desormes 
obtained the same result, and attempted to produce the sub- 
stance a second time. They performed a vast number of ex- 
periments ; but their success bore no proportion to their 
diligence and zeal. They published an account of their process 
and its consequences, but gained little credit, as no person 
was fortunate enough to produce the same substance. Many 
disbelieved the experiments altogether, and denied the ex- 
istence of such a combination ; whilst others, less inclined to 
doubt, attributed its formation to fortuitous circumstances 
which might never again occur together. In February, 1804, 
Professor Lampadius, in distilling some pyritized wood, though 
with a different intent, obtained the same substance. As he 
had it now in his power to observe the phenomena that at- 
tended its formation, he discovered, and has communicated to 
the world, a method of producing it, which never fails. Since 
his late paper upon the subject, as the necessary precautions 
can be followed by every chemist. Mess. Clement and Des- 
ormes have obtained that credit to which their experiments 
had, in truth, always been entitled; and the formation, of 
what Professor Lampadius terms his sulphur-alcohol is no 
longer a result of chance, or accounted for by being supposed 
one of those subterfuges to which human pride resorts, in order 
to spare itself the confession of human weakness. 
Q 2 
