Sir Humphry left Paris on the morning of the 29th of December, and proceeded by the way of Lyons to Montpellier, where he remained for a month, and became acquainted with M. BERARD, who afterwards filled the chemical chair in that university, and in whose laboratory he worked upon the subject of Iodine, and examined many of the marine productions of the Mediterranean, with the view of determining whether they contained that body. M. Berard directed a considerable quantity of the species of _Ulva_, which abounds on the coast of Languedoc, to be burnt for him; and although the ashes consisted for the most part of common salt, he obtained traces of Iodine in the lixivium. From the general results of his experiments, however, he concludes, that the ashes of the _fuci_ and _ulvæ_ of the Mediterranean afford it in much smaller quantities than the sea-weed, from which soda is procured; and it was only in a very few instances that he could derive any evidence of its existence. In the ashes of the corallines and sponges, he could not obtain the slightest indication of its presence. During this period he also extended his enquiries respecting the chemical agencies of Iodine, and the properties of several of its compounds, especially of those in which he believed it to exist in triple combination with alkalies and oxygen, and for which he proposed the name of _Oxy-iodes_.[9] [9] These are the _Iodates_ of the present day; but Davy, it would seem, resisted the conviction of Iodic acid being an _oxy-acid_, upon the same grounds that he opposed the views of M. Gay-Lussac with regard to the nature of Chloric acid. While at Montpellier, Davy witnessed the procession of the Pope on his return to Rome. His Holiness appeared in a state of great humiliation, and, on being supplicated by a poor woman to cure her child, he replied, that she must propitiate Heaven by her prayers, for that he was himself a mere mortal, without power to heal or to save. He quitted Montpellier on the 7th of February, and, accompanied by M. Berard, visited the fountain of Vaucluse; he afterwards continued his route to Nice, crossed the Col de Tende, to Turin, and arrived at Genoa on the 25th of February; from which place the following letter is dated. TO MR. UNDERWOOD. MY DEAR UNDERWOOD, Genoa, March 4. I have not received the letter you announced to me in the street, concerning Ampère's note, nor any others since I left Paris. The note came to me through the Prefect of Nice, with an indorsement by M. Degerand. I crossed the Alps by the Col de Tende, stayed at Turin three days, and came here through snow and ice, over the Bochetta, where I have been waiting for a fair wind for Tuscany. We have had no impediments except from the snow and the east winds.