The decomposition of the fixed alkalies and alkaline earths / H. Davy.

  • Davy, Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The decomposition of the fixed alkalies and alkaline earths / H. Davy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/60 (page 34)
    covered metals, and which, though originally Latin, is now naturalized in our language. Potasium and Sodium are the names by which I have ventured to call the two new substances : and whatever changes of theory, with regard to the composition of bodies, may hereafter take place, these terms can scarcely express an error ; for they may be considered as implying simply the metals produced from potash and soda. I have consulted with many of the most eminent scientific persons in this country, upon the methods of derivation, and the one I have adopted has been the one most generally approved. It is perhaps more significant than elegant. But it was not possible to found names upon specific properties not common to both; and though a name for the basis of soda might have been borrowed from the Greek, yet an analogous one could not have been applied to that of potash, for the ancients do not seem to have distinguished between the two alkalies. 1 he more caution is necessary in avoiding any theor- etical expression in the terms, because the new electro- chemical phenomena that are daily becoming disclosed, seem distinctly to shew that the mature time for a com- plete generalization of chemical facts is yet far distant; and though, in the explanations of the various results of experiments that have been detailed, the antiphlogistic solution of the phenomena has been uniformly adopted, yet the motive for employing it has been rather a sense of its beauty and precision, than a conviction of its per- manency and truth. The discovery of the agencies of the gasses destroyed the hypothesis of Stahl. The knowledge of the powers and effects of the etherial substances may at a future time possibly act a similar part with regard to the more refined and ingenious hypothesis of Lavoisier; but in the present state of our knowledge, it appears the best