DAVY, HUMPHRY - FOUNDATION OF ELECTRO-CHEMISTRY - FIRST FRENCH EDITION.

De quelques Effets chimiques de L'Électricité; Mémoire lu à la Societe Royale, pour la fondation de Baker, le 20 novembre 1806.

Paris, Chez Bernard, 1807. Contemp. hcalf., gilt spine. A few scratches to binding, wear to top of spine. In: "Annales de Chimie ou Recueil de Mémoires.." Vol. 63. Entire volume offered. 336 pp. a. 1 engraved plate. Davy's paper: pp. 172-224 a. pp. 225-266. Small stamps on verso of titlepage. Browning to halftitle. A few scattered brownspots.

First French edition of ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTENT CONTRIBUTIONS EVER MADE TO CHEMICAL SCIENCE, as Davy here outlined a theory of mass action, forcast the use of electricity in atomic disintegration and announced the isolation by electrolytic methods of two new elements, sodium and potassium. He used the most powerful electric battery of the time, a voltaic pile, invented 1800 by Volta.
"Humphrey Davy...was among the first to investigate the decomposition of water. In 1806 he delivered a Bakerian Lecture (the paper offered here in the French version) before the Royal Society of London "On some chemical agencies of electricity" (1807), which pointed out several fallacies in the theory of electrolysis. Davy's experiments on the chemical effects of electrical currents on substances, causing their decomposition, led to his discovery of several new elements: potassium (1807), sodium (1807), barium (1808), calcium (1808), and boron (1808)" (Milestone of Science No. 52) - Davy's first Bakerian Lecture won a Prize from Napoleon, even though France and England were at War. - Partington vol. IV pp. 42 ff. - PMM No 255 (note). - Parkinson, Breakthroughs: 1807 C.

Order-nr.: 44097