In the spring of the following year the _Philosophical Magazine_ states: "We have also to notice a course of lectures, just commenced at the institution, on a new branch of philosophy--we mean Galvanic Phenomena. On this interesting branch Mr. Davy (late of Bristol) gave the first lecture on the 25th of April. He began with the history of Galvanism, detailed the successive discoveries, and described the different methods of accumulating influence.... He showed the effects of galvanism on the legs of frogs, and exhibited some interesting experiments on the galvanic effects on the solutions of metals in acids." In a paper communicated to the Royal Society in 1806, _On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity_, Davy put on record the result of years of experiment. For example, as stated by his biographer, he had connected a cup of gypsum with one of agate by means of asbestos, and filling each with purified water, had inserted the negative wire of the battery in the agate cup, and the positive wire in that of the sulphate of lime. In about four hours he had found a strong solution of lime in the agate cup, and sulphuric acid in the cup of gypsum. On his reversing the arrangement, and carrying on the process for a similar length of time, the sulphuric acid appeared in the agate cup, and the solution of lime on the opposite side. It was thus that he studied the transfer of certain of the constituent parts of bodies by the action of electricity. "It is very natural to suppose," says Davy, "that the repellent and attractive energies are communicated from one particle to another particle of the same kind, so as to establish a conducting _chain_ in the fluid. There may be a succession of decompositions and recompositions before the electrolysis is complete." The publication of this paper in 1806 attracted much attention abroad, and gained for him--in spite of the fact that England and France were then at war--a medal awarded, under an arrangement instituted by Napoleon a few years previously, for the best experimental work on the subject of electricity. "Some people," said Davy, "say I ought not to accept this prize; and there have been foolish paragraphs in the papers to that effect; but if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed, be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather, through the instrumentality of men of science, soften the asperities of national hostility."