H 
Mr. Davy’s Lecture on some 
Well burned charcoal and plumbago, or charcoal and iron, 
might be made the exciting powers ; and such an arrangement 
if erected upon an extensive scale, neutrosaline matter being 
employed in every series, would, there is every reason to 
believe, produce large quantities of acids and alkalies with 
very little trouble or expence. 
Ammonia and acids capable of decomposition, undergo che- 
mical change in the Voltaic circuit only when they are in 
very concentrated solution, and in other cases are merely 
carried to their particular points of rest. This fact may in- 
duce us to hope that the new mode of analysis may lead us to 
the discovery of the true elements of bodies, if the materials 
acted on be employed in a certain state of concentration, and 
the electricity be sufficiently exalted. For if chemical union be 
of the nature which I have ventured to suppose, however 
strong the natural electrical energies of the elements of bodies 
may be, yet there is every probability of a limit to their 
strength: whereas the powers of our artificial instruments 
seem capable of indefinite increase. 
Alterations of electrical equilibrium are continually taking 
place in nature ; and it is probable that this influence, in its 
faculties of decomposition and transference, considerably in- 
terferes with the chemical alterations occurring in different 
parts of our system. 
The electrical appearances which precede earthquakes and 
volcanic eruptions, and which have been described by the 
greater number of observers of these awful events, admit of 
very easy explanation on the principles that have been stated. 
Besides the cases of sudden and violent change, there must 
be constant and tranquil alterations in which electricity is 
