As I have already exceeded the limits originally prescribed to myself, I shall not enter into the history of Davy's experiments on the other fixed alkali, soda, farther than to state that, when it was submitted to Voltaic action, a bright metal was obtained, similar in its general characters to potassium, but possessing sufficiently distinctive peculiarities as to volatility, fusibility, oxidability, &c. To this body Davy assigned the name of SODIUM.[74] [74] In his Bakerian Lecture of 1810, he informs us that he obtains Sodium by heating common salt, which has been previously ignited, with Potassium--an immediate decomposition takes place, and two parts of Potassium produce rather more than one of Sodium. In support of the metallic characters of these alkaline bases, it may be necessary to state that they combine with each other, and form alloys; the properties and habitudes of which are very interesting, and are fully described by their discoverer. No sooner had these results been made known to the scientific world, than a question arose, both in this country and abroad, as to the real nature of the bodies which had been thus obtained from the fixed alkalies, and which presented an aspect so obviously metallic. At first, it was conjectured by a few, that they might be compounds of the alkali with the platina used in the experiments; but this was at once disproved by Davy having obtained the same results when pieces of copper, silver, gold, plumbago, or even charcoal, had been employed for completing the Voltaic circuit.