52 
Mr. Davy’s Lecture on some 
the processes of chemistry, both in art and in nature, will 
readily suggest themselves to the philosophical enquirer. 
They offer very easy methods of separating acid and alka- 
line matter, when they exist in combination, either together or 
separately, in minerals ; and the electrical powers of decom- 
position may be easily employed in animal and vegetable 
analysis. 
A piece of muscular fibre, of two inches long and half an 
inch in diameter, after being electrified by the power of 150 
for five days, became perfectly dry and hard, and left on 
incineration no saline matter. Potash, soda, ammonia, lime, 
and oxide of iron were evolved from it on the negative side, 
and the three common mineral acids and the phosphoric acid, 
were given out on the positive side. 
A laurel leaf treated in the same manner, appeared as if it 
had been exposed to a heat of 500° or 6oo° Fahrenheit, and 
was brown and parched. Green colouring matter, with resin, 
alkali, and lime, appeared in the negative vessel: and the 
positive vessel contained a clear fluid, which had the smell 
of peach blossoms ; and which, when neutralized by potash, 
gave a blue-green precipitate to solution of sulphate of iron ; 
so that it contained vegetable prussic acid. 
A small plant of mint, in a state of healthy vegetation, was 
made the medium of connection in the battery, its extremities 
being in contact with pure water ; the process was carried on 
for 10 minutes : potash and lime were found in the negatively 
electrified water, and acid matter in the positively electrified 
water, which occasioned a precipitate in solutions of muriate 
of barytes, nitrate of silver, and muriate of lime. This plant 
recovered after the process : but a similar one, that had been 
