On September 13 he wrote in the Laboratory Book this verbal picture of his laboratory:
Objects much wanted in the laboratory of the Royal Institution: Cleanliness, neatness, and regularity.
The laboratory must be cleaned every morning when operations are going on before ten o’clock.
It is the business of W. Payne[38] to do this, and it is the duty of Mr. E. Davy to see that it is done and to take care of and keep in order the apparatus.
There must be in the laboratory pen, ink, paper, and wafers, and these must not be kept in the slovenly manner in which they usually are kept. I am now writing with a pen and ink such as was never used in any other place.
There are wanting small graduated glass tubes blown here and measured to ten grains of mercury.
There are wanting four new stopcocks fitted to our air-pump.
There are wanting twelve green glass retorts.
There are wanting most of the common metallic and saline solutions, such as acetate of copper, nitrate of silver, nitrate of barytes—most of these made in the laboratory.
All the wine-glasses should be cleaned.
And, as all operation ceases at six o’clock in the evening, there is plenty of time for getting things in order before night; but if they are not got into order the same night, they must be by ten o’clock the next day.
The laboratory is constantly in a state of dirt and confusion.
There must be a roller with a coarse towel for washing the hands and a basin of water and soap, and every week at least a whole morning must be devoted to the inspection and ordering of the voltaic battery.
For Thursday—i.e. to-morrow—the experiments in the morning are on the excitation of radiant heat and electricity in different gases. For the experiments on Friday, which will be on tellurium, there are wanting very pure hydrogen; two bottles of new, very pure oxymuriatic gas; two new stopcocks cemented into retorts, with stoppers, either green or white; some tubes of this bore
or near it, closed at one end and six inches long; a spirit lamp made from a phial of large bore and the tube larger than that at present used.
On September 14 he tried various experiments on the excitation of electricity. The Laboratory Book says, ‘Present in these and the former experiments, Mr. Cavendish, Dr. Herschel, Mr. Herschel, Sir Charles Blagden (not in the second set on electricity); Dr. Wollaston, Mr. Warburton.’
The repulsion of the machine was compared to the repulsion in a partial vacuum, in hydrogen, in carbonic acid, and in rarefied carbonic acid. The former experiments the same day were on the rise of a thermometer heated by a coil of platinum wire in different gases.
On September 21 the Note-Book says:
An Experiment to Decompose Muriatic Acid Gas.—A balloon having three openings, to one of which a stopcock was cemented, and in the other two were corks containing wires, so adapted to each other that a contact might be made. Pieces of well-burnt charcoal were fastened to the ends of the wires. The apparatus, being air-tight, was exhausted and filled with hydrogen; another exhaustion being made, the balloon was filled with oxymuriatic gas from a gas-holder, with which it was connected by means of a stopcock. The two wires being joined to the voltaic apparatus and a contact of the charcoal made, the ignition was brilliant without any apparent combustion; white fumes were presently produced, which in a short time disappeared again, and were afterwards, during the remaining time the experiment was in hand, only formed when two new points of charcoal came in contact, or when the flame played on the copper wire which fastened the charcoal. The light emitted was a brilliant yellowish colour, frequently assuming a fine lake. After an hour’s time the gas appeared unaltered, of its original colour. The higher parts of the pieces of charcoal were covered with a fine greenish-yellow powder, otherwise unaltered.
Tin-leaf thrown in through one of the openings began immediately to form with the oxymuriatic acid gas the fuming liquor of Libavius. When shook it inflamed.
On September 23, 1809, in a letter to Mr. Children, he mentions this experiment, and says ‘it is as difficult to decompose as nitrogen, except when all its elements can be made to enter into new combinations.’
On October 3, among ‘the hints for experiments’ in the Note-Book is this, to detonate together hydrogen and oxymuriatic acid.
Another Bakerian lecture was given, and then he continued his researches on ammonia.