some new Objects in Chemical Philosophy , 53 
ammonia, likewise produced a gas which was principally ni» 
trogene, so that if it be said that the metal, and not the volatile 
alkali is decomposed in processes of this kind, it must be 
considered in some cases as a compound of nitrogene, and in 
others a compound of liydrogene, which are contradictory 
assumptions. 
None of the chemists who have speculated upon the ima- 
ginary hydrogenation of potash, as far as my knowledge ex- 
tends, have brought forward any arguments of analysis, or 
synthesis. Their reasonings have been founded, either upon 
distant analogies, or upon experiments in which agents, 
which they did not suspect were concerned. No person, I be- 
lieve, has attempted to shew that when potassium or sodium 
is burnt in oxygene gas, water is formed, or that water is 
generated, when potassium decomposes any of the acids,* and 
no one has been able to form potassium, by combining hy- 
drogene with potash. I stated in the Bakerian lecture for 
1807, that when potassium and sodium were burnt in oxygene 
* When in October 1807, I obtained a dark coloured combustible substance from 
boracic acid, at the negative pole in the Voltaic circuit, I concluded that the acid was 
probably decomposed, according to the common law of electrical decomposition. In 
March 1808, I made further experiments on this substance, and ascertained that it 
produced acid matter by combustion ; and I announced the decomposition in a pub- 
lic lecture delivered in the Royal Institution March 12. Soon after I heated a small 
quantity of potassium, in contact with dry boracic acid, no water was given off in the 
operation, and I obtained the same substance as I had procured by electricity. MM. 
Gay Lussac and Thenard have likewise operated upon boracic acid, by potas- 
sium, and they conclude that they have decompounded it; but this does not follow 
from their theory, unless they prove that water is given off in the operation, or 
combined with the borate of potash ; the legitimate conclusion to be drawn from 
the processes, on their hypothesis, was, that they had made a hydruret of boracic 
acid. 
MDCCCX. 
F 
