Under this impression, he commenced a series of experiments by which, he says, he soon became satisfied of the existence of oxygen in the volatile alkali. By means of the Voltaic battery, he ignited perfectly dry charcoal in a small quantity of pure ammoniacal gas, and he produced carbonate of ammonia; which could not have happened, had not oxygen been furnished by the volatile alkali to the carbon. In the next place, by an ingenious arrangement of apparatus, he submitted ammonia to a high temperature, and effected its decomposition, when a quantity of water appeared as one of the products. It will be useless to enter into farther details upon this occasion, as we shall presently perceive the subject assumed a different aspect, and led the experimentalist into a new line of enquiry.
At the conclusion of his Bakerian Lecture of 1807, he speaks of the probable composition of the earths, and considers it reasonable to expect that they are compounds of a similar nature to the fixed alkalies—"peculiar highly combustible metallic bases united to oxygen;"—but, as yet, this theory was sanctioned only by strong analogies; it was his good fortune, at a subsequent period, to support it by conclusive facts.
When the importance and novelty of the results he obtained from the fixed alkalies, and their influence upon the reigning theories, are duly considered, it may be easily imagined how intense was the curiosity to witness the production of the new metals, to examine their singular qualities, and to question the illustrious discoverer upon their nature and relations. Suppose it were publicly announced that one of the greatest Astronomers of the day had invented a telescope of new and extraordinary powers; and that by its means a hitherto unsuspected system of heavenly bodies might be seen, the character and motions of which were wholly inconsistent with the Newtonian theory of the universe. The surprise and eager curiosity which such an announcement would create might possibly be more general, because a knowledge of Astronomy is more widely diffused than that of Chemistry; but the sensation would not be more intense than that which the discovery of potassium produced. The laboratory of the Institution was crowded with persons of every rank and description; and Davy, as may be readily supposed, was kept in a continued state of excitement throughout the day. This circumstance, co-operating with the effects of the fatigue he had previously undergone, produced a most severe fit of illness, which for a time caused an awful pause in his researches, broke the thread of his pursuits, and turned his reflections into different channels.
He always laboured under the impression that the fever had been occasioned by contagion, to which he had been exposed in one of the jails during an experiment for fumigating it. This impression appears to have continued through life, for in his "Last Days" he alludes to it in terms of strong conviction.
Other persons referred his illness to the deleterious fumes, especially those of Baryta, to which his experiments had exposed him: an opinion recorded in an Epigram,[82] which was circulated amongst the members of the Institution after his recovery.
Says Davy to Baryt, "I've a strong inclination
To try to effect your deoxidation;"
But Baryt replies—"Have a care of your mirth,
Lest I should retaliate, and change you to Earth."
Upon conversing, however, with Dr. Babington, who, with Dr. Frank, attended Davy throughout this illness, he assured me that there was not the slightest ground for either of these opinions; that the fever was evidently the effect of fatigue and an over-excited brain. The reader will not feel much hesitation in believing this statement, when he is made acquainted with the habits of Davy at this period. His intellectual exertions were of the most injurious kind, and yet, unlike the philosophers of old, he sought not to fortify himself by habits of temperance. Should any of my readers propose to me the same question respecting Davy, as Fontenelle tells us was put to an Englishman in Paris, by a scientific Marquis, with regard to Newton,—whether he ate, drank, and slept like other people?—I certainly should be bound to answer in the negative.