so Mr. Davy’s Experiments on the 
not the least doubt that these bodies would combine directly 
with that substance, and form dry muriates. 
In the last experiments that I made on the metallization of 
the earths by amalgamation, I paid particular attention to the 
state of the products formed, by exposing the residuum of 
amalgams to the air. I found that baryta formed in this way 
was not fusible at an intense white heat, and that strontia and 
lime so formed gave off no water when ignited. Baryta made 
from chrystals of the earth, as M. Berthollet has shewn, is a 
fusible hydrat, and I found that this earth gave moisture when 
decomposed by oxymuriatic gas ; and the lime, in hydrat of 
lime, was much more rapidly decomposed by oxymuriatic gas 
than quicklime, its oxygene being rapidly expelled with the 
water. 
Some dry quicklime was heated in a retort, filled with 
muriatic acid gas ; water was instantly formed in great abun- 
dance, and it can hardly be doubted, that this arose from the 
hydrogene of the acid combining with the oxygene of the 
lime. 
As potassium so readily decomposes common salt, I thought 
it might possibly decompose muriate of lime, and thus afford 
easy means of procuring calcium. The rapidity with which 
muriate of lime absorbs water, and the difficulty of freeing it 
even by a white heat from the last portions, rendered the cir- 
cumstances of the experiments unfavourable. I found, how- 
ever, that by heating potassium strongly, in contact with the 
salt, in a retort of difficultly fusible glass, I obtained a dark 
coloured matter, diffused through a vitreous mass, which effer- 
vesced strongly with water. The potassium had all disap- 
peared, and the retort had received a heat at which potassium 
