Further, he announced that on heating manganese (dioxide) in inflammable air
no water is formed,
and what is rather astounding, he was certain that azote consisted of hydrogen and oxygen.
To the Medical Repository, which he regarded highly, there was sent a rather thoughtful disquisition on dreams. In it the idea was expressed
that dreams have their seat in some region of the brain more deeply seated than that which is occupied by our waking thoughts.
A "Pile of Volta" had been sent out from England. It amused him and he studied it carefully when he was led to remark upon the theory of this curious process as follows:
The operation wholly depends on the calcination of the zinc, which suffers a great diminution in weight, while the silver is little affected, and all metals lose their phlogiston in calcination, therefore what remains of the zinc in metallic form in the pile and everything connected with that end of it, is supersaturated with phlogiston.
More need not be quoted. It was phlogiston and that only which occasioned the electric current. It may properly be added that in this connection he wrote:
It is said the inventor of the galvanic pile discovered the conducting power of charcoal, whereas it was one of my first observations in electricity, made in 1766.