“Barytes and strontites have the strongest relations to the fixed alkalies of any of the earthy bodies; but there is a chain of resemblances through lime, magnesia, glucina, alumina, and silex. And by the agencies of batteries sufficiently strong, and by the application of proper circumstances, there is no small reason to hope that even these refractory bodies will yield their elements to the methods of analysis by electrical attraction and repulsion.” Although certain of the conjectures with which the paper terminates have been proved to be erroneous, others have been shown to be sound. Thus he points out that the metals of the alkalis will undoubtedly prove powerful agents for analysis: “Having an affinity for oxygen stronger than any other known substances they may possibly supersede the application of electricity to some of the undecompounded bodies.” Such is a brief summary of the contents of one of the most classical papers in the _Philosophical Transactions_. Its publication created an extraordinary sensation, not less profound, and certainly more general from the very nature of the subject, than that which followed his first Bakerian lecture. That potash and soda should contain metals--and such metals!--was undreamt of, and was a shock to the settled convictions of persons who, like the Aberdonian professor, declared that this “ane Davy was a vera troublesome person in chemistry.” But this “troublesome person” had well nigh ceased from troubling any more. Almost immediately after the delivery of his lecture he collapsed--struck down by an illness which nearly proved fatal, and for weeks his life hung on a thread. He had been in a low feverish condition for some time previously, and a great dread had fallen upon him that he should die before he had completed his discoveries. It was in this condition of body and mind that he applied himself to the task of putting together an account of his results. Four days after this was given to the world he took to his bed, and he remained there for nine weeks. Such a blow following hard on such a triumph, aroused the liveliest sympathy. The doors of the Royal Institution were beset by anxious inquirers. His physicians, Babington, Frank, and Baillie, tended him with the greatest assiduity. Mrs. Greenwood, the housekeeper, and his cousin, Edmund Davy, nursed him night and day. So great was the popular feeling that, when he was at the worst, written reports of his condition at various periods of the day had to be posted in the hall. The strength of the feeling may be gleaned, too, from the sentences with which Dr. Dibdin began his lecture introductory to the session of 1808:-- “The Managers of this Institution have requested me to impart to you that intelligence, which no one who is alive to the best feelings of human nature can hear without the mixed emotions of sorrow and delight.