34° Mr. Davy’s Electrochemical Researches on 
and when the amalgam was throwii into water, hydrogene 
was disengaged, the mercury remained free, and a solution of 
harytes was formed 
The result with lime, as these gentlemen had stated, was 
precisely analogous. 
That the same happy methods must succeed with strontites 
and magnesia, it was not easy to doubt, and I quickly tried 
the experiment. 
From strontites I obtained a very rapid result ; but from 
magnesia, in the first trials, no amalgam could be procured. By 
continuing the process however, for a longer time, and keeping 
the earth continually moist, at last a combination of the basis 
with mercury was obtained, which slowly produced magnesia 
by absorption of oxygene from air, or by the action of water. 
All these amalgams 1 found might be preserved for a con- 
siderable period under naphtha. In a length of time, however, 
they became covered with a white crust under this fluid. 
When exposed to air, a very few minutes only were required 
for the oxygenation of the bases of the earths. In water the 
amalgam of barytes was most rapidly decomposed : that of 
strontites and that of lime next in order : but the amalgam 
from magnesia, as might be expected from the weak affinity of 
the earth for water, very slowly changed ; when a little sul- 
phuric acid was added to the water, however, the evolution of 
hydrogene, and the production and solution of magnesia were 
exceedingly rapid, and the mercury soon remained free. 
I was inclined to believe that one reason why magnesia was 
less easy to metallize than the other alkaline earths, was its 
insolubility in water, which would prevent it from being pre- 
sented in the nascent state, detached from its solution at the 
