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Gaimar refers th to Nicole de Traill not believe what I Nicole de Trailli." cited in Hist. Mid. -Sir Walter's gra Monastery, printed the MS. in the Cot D. 1, informs us w Trailli was. He w one of Sir Walter's ton MS. Vitell. 64 Dugdale, informs u in his youth, mar had by her a son, growing up to be unfortunately, havin horses at full speed, so much beyond its from exhaustion, an master, who died fro Some time after thi queathed by will tween his three sist second, Albreda, m de Traylye; and the daughter built the ca in that district. Du p. 727, 728, from M In his grant to t Walter mentions his lac, and his nephe Traeli, William, Gill sons of my half-siste dale, p. 729, from M To These documents factory comment count, as to the so on the ancient k the a From these facts, quoted in the Hist Ages, vol. iv. p. 3. himself, we learn th Gloucester, the natu I., caused the Wel out of Bretagne by ciary, Walter Calenu of Oxford, to be tran That Sir Walter Esp obtained this trans Robert, and lent it of Gilebert; and th stance, or Constan loan of it, for Gaiman part of his history f Gaimar, anxious for

human knowledge which have been elucidated by the discoveries and improvements of modern times, none has been further advanced than that of chemistry. The rapid and important acquisitions in that science which have distinguished the present age, are chiefly to be attributed to the substitution of the analytical for the synthetical system of philosophizing; and in the next place, to the profound judgment and indefatigable ardour with which the subject of this memoir availed himself of that great improvement, in developing, in a career unequalled since the death of Newton, the mysterious constitution of the infinitely diversified matter, in which we are destined to exist.

Sir Humphry Davy was born December 17, 1779, at Penzance, in Cornwall. The name is of ancient respectability in the West of England, and his family was above the middle class; his paternal great-grandfather had considerable landed property in the parish of Ludgvan, and his father possessed a small paternal estate opposite St. Michael's Mount, called Bartel, on which he died in 1795, after having injured his fortune by expending considerable sums in attempting agricultural improvements. Sir Humphry received the first rudiments of his education at the grammar-schools of Penzance and Truro; at the former place he resided with Mr. John Tomkin, surgeon, a benevolent and intelligent man, who had been intimately connected with his maternal grandfather, and treated him with a degree of kindness little less than paternal. His genius was originally inclined to poetry; and there are many natives of Penzance who remember his poems and verses, written at the early age of nine years. He cultivated this bias till his fifteenth year, when he became the pupil of Mr. (since Dr.) Borlase, of Penzance, an ingenious surgeon, intending to prepare himself for graduating as a physician at Edinburgh. At this early age Davy laid down for himself a plan of education, which embraced the circle of the sciences. By his eighteenth year he had acquired the rudiments of GENT. MAG. July, 1829.

simpler mathematics, metaphysics, natural philosophy, and chemistry. But chemistry soon arrested his whole attention. Having made some experiments on the air disengaged by seaweeds from the water of the ocean, which convinced him that these vegetables performed the same part in purifying the air dissolved in water which land-vegetables act in the atmosphere, he communicated them to Dr. Beddoes, who had at that time circulated proposals for publishing a journal of philosophical contributions from the West of England. This produced a correspondence between Dr. Beddoes and Mr. Davy, in which the Doctor proposed that Mr. Davy, who was at this time only nineteen years of age, should suspend his plan of going to Edinburgh, and take a part in experiments which were then about to be instituted at Bristol, for investigating the medical powers of factitious airs. To this proposal the young man consented, on condition that he should have the uncontrolled superintendence of the experiments; and by the judicious advice of Davies Gilbert, Esq., a gentleman of high scientific attainments, and now President of the Royal Society, whose eye had watched him from the commencement of his studies, having known his parents and family, he continued with application and perseverance in the study of chemistry. With Dr. Beddoes Mr. Davy resided for a considerable time, and was constantly occupied in new chemical investigations. Here, he discovered the respirability of nitrous oxide, and made a number of laborious experiments on gaseous bodies, which he afterwards published in his "Chemical and Philosophical Researches," 8vo. 1800, a work which was universally well received in the chemical world, and created a high reputation for its author, at that time only twentyone years of age. This led to his introduction to Count Rumford; and having previously delivered some lectures at Clifton, to his being elected Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Institution in Albemarle-street. Ön obtaining this appointment Mr. Davy

gave up all his views of the medical profession, and devoted himself entirely to chemistry.

Mr. Davy's first experiments as Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution were made on the substance employed in the process of tanning, with others to which similar properties were ascribed, in consequence of the discovery made by Mr. Seguier, of Paris, of the peculiar vegetable matter, now called tannin. He was, during the same period, frequently occupied in experiments on galvanism.

In 1802 Mr. Davy commenced a series of lectures before the Board of Agriculture, which was continued for ten years. It contained much popular and practical information, and was among the most useful of Mr. Davy's scientific labours; for the application of chemistry to agriculture is one of its most important results. So rapid were the discoveries of the author, that in preparing these discourses for publication, a few years afterwards, he was under the necessity of making several alterations, to adapt them to the improved state of chemical knowledge, which his own labours had, in that short time, produced.

In 1803 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1805 a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He now enjoyed the friendship of the most distinguished literary men and philosophers of the metropolis, and enumerated among his intimate friends, Sir Joseph Banks, Cavendish, Hatchett, Wollaston, Children, Tennant, and other eminent men. At the same time he corresponded with the principal chemists of every part of Europe. In 1806 he was appointed to deliver, before the Royal Society, the Bakerian lecture, in which he displayed some very interesting new agencies of electricity, by means of the galvanic apparatus. Soon afterwards, he made one of the most brilliant discoveries of modern times, in the decomposition of two fixed alkalies, which, in direct refutation of the hypothesis previously adopted, were found to consist of a peculiar metallic base, united with a large quantity of oxygen. These alkalies were potash and soda, and the metals thus discovered were called potassium and sodium. Mr. Davy was equally successful in the application of galvanism to the decomposition of the earths. On the 22d of January, 1807,

he was elected Secretary of the Royal Society; and in the same year the National Institute of France allotted him a prize of 3000 livres for his paper on Chemical Affinities. During the greater part of 1810 he was employed on the combinations of oxymuriatic gas and oxygen, and towards the close of the same year he delivered a course of lectures before the Dublin Society, and received from Trinity College, Dublin, the honorary degree of LL.D.

In 1812 Mr. Davy married. The object of his choice was Jane, daughter and heiress of Charles Kerr, of Kelso, Esq., and widow of Shuckburgh Ashby Apreece, Esq., eldest son of the present Sir Thomas Hussey Apreece, Bart. By his union with this lady, Mr. Davy acquired not only a considerable fortune, but the inestimable treasure of an affectionate and exemplary wife, and a congenial friend and companion, capable of appreciating his character and attainments. On the 9th of April, only two days previously to his marriage, he received the honour of knighthood from the Prince Regent, being the first person on whom his Royal Highness conferred that dignity.

We now arrive at the most important result of Sir Humphry Davy's labours, the invention of the SAFETYLAMP for coal mines, which has been generally and successfully adopted throughout Europe. The frequency of accidents, arising from the explosion of the fire-damp, or inflammable gas of the coal mines, mixed with atmospherical air, occasioned the formation of a committee at Sunderland, for the purpose of investigating the causes of these calamities, and of endeavouring to discover and apply a preventive. Sir Humphry received an invitation, in 1815, from Dr. Gray, one of the members of the committee; in consequence of which he went to the North of England, and visiting some of the principal collieries in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, soon convinced himself that no improvement could be made in the mode of ventilation, but that the desired preventive must be sought in a new method of lighting the mines, free from danger, and which, by indicating the state of the air in the part of the mine where the inflammable air was disengaged, so as to render the atmosphere explosive, should oblige the miners to retire till

the workings were properly cleared. The common means then employed for lighting the dangerous part of the mines consisted of a steel wheel revolving in contact with flint, and affording a succession of sparks: but this apparatus always required a person to work it, and was not entirely free from danger. The fire-damp was known to be light carburetted hy drogen gas; but its relations to combustion had not been examined. It is chiefly produced from what are called blowers or fissures in the broken strata, near dykes. Sir Humphry made various experiments on its combustibility and explosive nature; and discovered that the fire-damp requires a very strong heat for its inflammation; that azote and carbonic acid, even in very small proportions, diminished the velocity of the inflammation; that mixtures of the gas would not explode in metallic canals or troughs, where their diameter was less than one-seventh of an inch, and their depth considerable in proportion to their diameter; and that explosions could not be made to pass through such canals, or through very fine wire sieves, or wire-gauze. The consideration of these facts led Sir Humphry to adopt a lamp, in which the flame, by being supplied with only a limited quantity of air, should produce such a quantity of azote and carbonic acid as to prevent the explosion of the firedamp, and which, by the nature of its apertures for giving admittance and egress to the air, should be rendered incapable of communicating any explosion to the external air. These requisites were found to be afforded by air-tight lanterns, of various constructions, supplied with air from tubes or canals of small diameter, or from apertures covered with wire-gauze, placed below the flame, through which explosions cannot be communicated; and having a chimney at the upper part, for carrying off the foul air. Sir Humphry soon afterwards found that a constant flame might be kept up from the explosive mixture issuing from the apertures of a wire-gauze sieve. He introduced a very small lamp in a cylinder, made of wiregauze, having six thousand four hundred apertures in the square inch. He closed all apertures except those of the gauze, and introduced the lamp, burning brightly within the cylinder, into

gas

a large jar, containing several quarts of the most explosive mixture of from the distillation of coal and air; the flame of the wick immediately disappeared, or rather was lost, for the whole of the interior of the cylinder became filled with a feeble but steady flame of a green colour, which burnt for some minutes, till it had entirely destroyed the explosive power of the atmosphere. This discovery led to a most important improvement in the lamp, divested the fire-damp of all its terrors, and applied its powers, formerly so destructive, to the production of a useful light. Some minor improvements, originating in Sir Humphry's researches into the nature of flame, were afterwards effected. Experiments of the most satisfactory nature were speedily made, and the invention was soon generally adopted. Some attempts were made to dispute the honour of this discovery with its author, but his claims were confirmed by the investigations of the first philosophers of the age. The coal owners of the Tyne and Wear evinced their sense of the benefits resulting from this invention, by presenting Sir Humphry with a handsome service of plate worth nearly two thousand pounds, at a public dinner at Newcastle, October

11, 1817.

In 1813 Sir Humphry was elected a corresponding member of the Institute of France, and Vice-President of the Royal Institution. He was created a Baronet Oct. 20, 1818. In 1820 he was elected a Foreign Associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, in the room of his countryman Watt; and in the course of a few years most of the learned bodies in Europe enrolled him among their members.

Many pages might be occupied with the interesting details of Sir Humphry Davy's travels in different parts of Europe for scientific purposes, particularly to investigate the causes of volcanic phenomena, to instruct the miners of the coal districts in the application of his safety-lamp, to examine the state of the Herculaneum manuscripts, and to illustrate the remains of the chemical arts of the ancients. He analysed the colours used in painting by the ancient Greek and Roman artists. His experiments were chiefly made on the paintings in the baths of Titus, the ruins called the baths of Livia, in the remains of other palaces

and baths of ancient Rome, and in the ruins of Pompeii. By the kindness of his friend Canova, who was charged with the care of the works connected with ancient art in Rome, he was enabled to select with his own hands specimens of the different pigments that had been formed in vases discovered in the excavations, which had been lately made beneath the ruins of the palace of Titus, and to compare them with the colours fixed on the walls, or detached in fragments of stucco. The results of all these researches were published in the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1815, and are extremely interesting. The concluding observations, in which he impresses the superior importance of permanency to brilliancy in the colours used in painting, are especially worthy the attention of artists. On his examination of the Herculaneum manuscripts, at Naples, in 1818-19, he was of opinion they had not been acted upon by fire, so as to be completely carbonized, but that their leaves were cemented together by a substance formed during the fermentation and chemical change of ages. He invented a composition for the solution of this substance, but he could not discover more than 100 out of 1,265 manuscripts, which presented any probability of success.

Sir Humphry returned to England in 1820, and in the same year his respected friend, Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, died. Several discussions took place respecting a proper successor, when individuals of high and even very exalted rank were named as candidates. But science, very properly in this case, superseded rank. Amongst the philosophers whose labours had enriched the Transactions of the Royal Society, two were most generally adverted to, Sir Humphry Davy and Dr. Wollaston; but Dr. Wollaston, who had received from the council of the Society the unanimous compliment of being placed in the chair till the election by the body in November, declined any competition with his friend Sir Humphry Davy. Sir Humphry retained his seat as President till the year 1827, when, in consequence of procrastinated ill health, in great measure brought on by injuries occasioned to his constitution by scientific experiments, he was induced, by medical advice, to retire to the con

tinent. He accordingly resigned his seat as President of the Royal Society, the chair being filled, pro temp. by Davies Gilbert, Esq. who at the Anniversary Meeting, Nov. 30, 1827, was unanimously elected President.

During his retirement on the Continent, Sir Humphry continued to communicate the results of his labours to the Royal Society, and at the anniversary meeting of the year 1827, one of the royal medals was awarded to him for a series of brilliant discoveries developing the relation between electricity and chemistry. Upon this interesting occasion, Mr. Davies Gilbert spoke as follows:

"It is with feelings the most gratifying to myself, that I now approach to the award of a Royal medal to Sir Humphry Davy; having witnessed the whole progress of his advancement in science and in reputation, from his first attempts in his native town, to vary some of Dr. Priestley's experiments on the extrication of oxygen from marine vegetables, to the point of eminence which we all know him to have reached.

"It is not necessary for me more than to advert to his discovery of nitrous oxide; to his investigation of the action of light on gases on the nature of heat; to his successful discrimination of proximate vegetable elements; nor to his most scientific, ingenious, and useful invention, the safetylamp, an invention reasoned out from its principles, with all the accuracy and pre

cision of mathematical deduction.

"The particular series of discoveries for which the Royal medal has been awarded, are those which develop the relation between electricity and chemistry.

"Soon after Sir Humphry Davy had been seated at the Royal Institution by an invitation from Count Rumford, an invita

tion founded on his first production,—a paper on the nature of heat,-our late President began his experiments and investigations on electric chemistry: a most powerful Voltaic apparatus was fortunately placed at his disposal; and in his hands electric chemistry soon became the most important branch of practical science: important from its immediate energies and powers; but much more so from the general laws of nature, which it has laid open to our view.

"A new acidifying principle, or supporter of combustion, was discovered, possessing the same negative electric properties as oxygen. Muriatic acid disclosed its real composition. The oxymuriates were transferred to their proper class. The alkalies were reduced into metals; and the earths were proved to be similar oxides. But in the progress of these experiments a dis