Biographical memoir of Sir Humphry Davy / [Georges Cuvier].

  • Georges Cuvier
Date:
1833]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biographical memoir of Sir Humphry Davy / [Georges Cuvier]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    menon appeared to them remarkable; water, they said, is an ingredient necessary to the formation of muriatic acid ; but how does it happen to adhere so forcibly, that no means are sufficient to disengage it ? May it not be only by one of these elements that it concurs in forming this acid ? and may not the oxygen which is disengaged during the operation, and which is suppos¬ ed to proceed from the oxygenated muriatic acid, be simply an¬ other element of w^ater ? Thus, neither oxygenated muriatic acid, nor common muriatic acid, would contain oxygen. This opinion they ventured to express at the end of their me¬ moir as a possible hypothesis; but they dared not support it in the face of their old masters, in whose eyes the theory of Lavoi¬ sier had acquired almost a religious sanctity Mr Davy, who was under no such restraint, read a metaoir in 1810*1, in which he advances this hypothesis, and supports it by a multitude of additional experiments The pretended oxygenated muriatic gas was therefore an agent of combustion equal with oxygen ; at the same time wlien becoming to us a simple substance, it required a simple name; that of chlorine was given to it, subsequently abridged and changed to chlore. A theory so new, it will readily be believed, was not so soon adopted as it was proposed. Mr Murray, a skilful chemist of Edinburgh, and Berzelius himself, defended the old theory with as much spirit as perseverance. Never was a scientific dispute conducted with so much propriety on both sides ; to each expe¬ riment and explanation of an adversary, the other replied by ex¬ periments and explanations which seemed not less important, and the chemical world appeared in a state of suspense, when the appearance of a new substance caused the scale to turn in Mr Davy’s favour, by associating with chlorine in its properties, and especially by producing combustion and acidification. * Memoires de la Soc. d’Arcueil, tom. ii. p. 357. + Researches on the Oxymuriatic Acid, its nature and combinations, and on the elements of the muriatic acid. Ro^. Soc. 12th July 1810. Phil. Trans. vol. c. p. 231. Ann. de Chem. tom. Ixxvi. p. 113 and 129. Journ. de Phys. tom. Ixxi. p. 321. Biblioth. Brit. vol. xlv. p. 229. 4: On some of the combinations of oxymuriatic gas and oxygen, and on the chemical relation of these principles to inflammable bodies. Roy. Soe. 15th November 1810. Phil. Trans, vol. ci. p. 1. Ann. de Chem. tom. Ixxviii. p. 298. Journ. de Phys. tom. xlii. p. 358. Biblioth. Brit. tom. xlvii. p. 34s 245, 340.
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