In July the action of chlorine on carbonic oxide, exposed for hours to bright sunshine, was examined. He wrote, ‘The new gas seems to consist of equal volumes of chlorine and carbonic oxide condensed to one volume.’
On August 7 Davy wrote in the Laboratory Book, ‘To get nitrous oxide, nitrous gas, and very pure chlorine for experiments. To try to decompose nitrogen or to combine it with chlorine.’
On the 10th the exposure to the light had been continued two days without result.
In the middle of August he experimented on the action of potassium on silicated fluoric gas.
From September 2 to December 20 there are no entries in the Laboratory Book. That day—the first after his return from Ireland—there are experiments on the electrolization of water.
Early in the following year Sir Joseph Banks wrote to Sir George Staunton (in China):
We are going on here as usual, but I think the taste for science is on the increase. The Royal Society has been well supplied with papers, and continues to be so. Davy, our secretary, is said to be on the point of marrying a rich and handsome widow, who has fallen in love with science and marries him in order to obtain a footing in the academic groves; her name is Apreece, the daughter of Mr. Carr, who made a fortune in India, and the niece of Dr. Carr, of Northampton. If this takes place, it will give to science a kind of new éclat; we want nothing so much as the countenance of the ladies to increase our popularity.
Very little laboratory work was done in 1812. It appears from Davy’s notes that a few experiments on euchlorine were made in January. In February he was again working on sulphur and phosphorus and chlorine. In March he was experimenting on borum with oxygen, and with chlorine.
In August an experiment was made to ascertain whether there is, according to the received belief, a neutral part in the voltaic circle.