So curious and important a result could not fail to interest him, as he had himself been long engaged in experiments on the action of azote and chlorine, without gaining any decided proofs of their power of combining with each other. It was evident from the notice, that this new body could not be formed in any operations in which heat is concerned; he therefore attempted to combine the elements by presenting them to each other artificially cooled, the azote being in a nascent state. For this purpose he introduced chlorine into a solution of ammonia; a violent action ensued, and minute films of a yellow colour were observed on the surface of the liquor, but they immediately resolved themselves into gas. As he was about to repeat the experiment with some other ammoniacal compounds, Mr. Children reminded him of the circumstance which he had previously communicated to him in a letter, that Mr. James Burton, junr, on exposing chlorine to a solution of nitrate of ammonia, had observed the formation of a yellow oil, but which he had not been able to collect. Davy availed himself of the hint, and obtained the substance in question: on examining its properties by the application of heat, the tube in which it was contained was shivered to atoms by its explosion, and he received a severe wound in the transparent cornea, which was followed by inflammation, and disabled him from pursuing his enquiry. In the following July, however, he communicated in a second letter to Sir Joseph Banks, the continuation of this enquiry, and furnished a full and satisfactory history of the body in question. Having procured it in sufficient quantity, he attempted to effect its analysis by the action of mercury, but a violent detonation occurred, and he was again wounded in the head and hands; fortunately, however, the injury was slight, in consequence of his having taken the precaution to defend his face by a plate of glass attached to a proper cap. In a subsequent experiment, by using smaller quantities, and recently distilled mercury, he succeeded in obtaining results without any violence of action: the mercury united with the chlorine, and the azote was disengaged; from which he was enabled to conclude that it was composed of four volumes of chlorine and one volume of azote. For this new body Davy suggested the name of _Azotane_; but I have already observed, that his nomenclature of the compounds of chlorine has never been adopted; the detonating substance is now very properly denominated _Chloride of Nitrogen_. Shortly after the publication of this paper, M. Berzelius, in a letter to Professor Gilbert, asserted that "_Azotane_" is nothing more than _dry_ nitro-muriatic acid, since it dissolves slowly in water, and forms a weak _aqua regia_. "These few observations," says he, "show clearly that Davy's analysis of this substance is inaccurate, and that he corrected his results in consequence of theoretical views."