The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1829-08-19
SIR HUMPHREY DAyY.

The following is an extract from an arti-
Gle in the Journal de Geneve, announcing
the death of Sir HumphIy Davy.
"The scientific world has just sustained
a great loss; one of the most celebrated
chemists of England,-he who, endowed
with penetrating intellect and a creative
genius, made so many useful discoveries
and so many felicitons applications in the
arts and sciences-Sir Humphry Davy, is
no more!
This man of genius was so years of age.
He was born on the 18th Dec, 1879, at Pen
zance, in the county of Cornwall, Eng
where he received his early education. At
the age of Is years he was well versed in
the natural sciences; hut he showed more
particularly decided taste for chemistry.
At 10 years of age he established, by ex-
periments, that marine plants give out oxy-
gen like vegetables on land, which serves
to supply the place of the oxygen consum-
ed by the numerous inhabitants of the sea.
In series of experiments on the gases, he
was the fret who ventured to inhale a gas
produced solely by art, and he discovered
the intoxicating and exhilarating effects OF
nitrous oxide. At the age of % he was
appointed professor of chemistry at the
London Royal Institution; at "a he was
admitted member of the ROYAL Society.
and was appointed its Secretary three wears
afterwards. From 1902 to 1910 no was
uninterruptedly engaged in researches on
the composition of a great number of SUBJ
stances, which he submitted to a new mode
of analysis,-the action Of the voltac bat
terry. He discovered that the oxigenated
muriatic acid of Lavoisier was a simple
substance, to which he gave the name of
chlorine; and that in combining directly
with hydrogen, it formed hydrochloric acid,
formerly called muriatic acid-thus striking
fatal blow at the theory of Lavoisier, who
had considered oxygen as the only acidify-
ing principle.
Another French chemist, MorVeau, had
proposed to admit hydrogen as the alkalify-
ing principle; but Davy, continuing his i'm
portant discoveries, decomposed potash,
soda, and barytes, released the oxygen from
these old alkalies and showed that they
were oxides by extracting from their me-
tallic bases potassium, sodium, and barium :
and thus hydrogen ceased to be the alkaii-
flying principle. These important discover
les obtained for him in 1910, the prize of
the Imperial Institute, Notwithstanding the
savage war which then ragged between
England and France-a fact which does
honor both to the body which awarded the
prize and TO the Emperor who permitted it.
In 1871, Dayy was made a Knight. In
1914, he was elected corresponding men,
her Of the Institute of France, and vice
president of the Royal Institution.
The article then proceeds to mention
Sir Humphry Davy's discoveries in com
bustion, his admirable and valuable dis
covery of the safety lamp" and his examin-
alton Of the carbonized papyri found at Her
culaneum, which he suggested method of
In 1923 he took a principal part
in founding the Society of Natural History
in London, and he also discovered method
Of preventing the rapid corrosion of copper
On the bottom Of vessels
Sir Humphry Dayy has published, besides
/ multitude of Memoirs inserted in the Phi.
osophical Transactions in the Encyclopm- |
Tia Britannica, in the Bibliotheque Univer-
ellie, and other scientific publications, LIST,