‘But although the two fixed alkalies called soda and potash were attacked by the most eminent chemists with every known chemical agent and by every method which the improved state of science could suggest, not the smallest effect could be produced on them; so that the nature of these two common substances remained totally unascertained and became a grand desideratum of chemical science. When, however, M. Volta had communicated to the Royal Society his great discovery of the galvanic pile, and when this had been modified into the more convenient form of troughs by Crookshank of Woolwich, the electro-galvanic power was found by various philosophers to produce surprising effects when applied to different substances, and Mr. Davy in particular distinguished himself in these researches and made a number of valuable experiments and observations, some of the more remarkable of which he communicated to the Royal Society in the Bakerian lecture read in November 1806. Mr. Davy conceived, however, from what he had then accomplished, that much more might be done; and with equal skill and perseverance he performed a new series of experiments, in the course of which, by various means, he again tried the effect of the powerful galvanic batteries belonging to the laboratory of the Royal Institution, and particularly devoted his attention to the two fixed alkalies (soda and potash), with the view of effecting their decomposition and of ascertaining the nature of them by means of that powerful agent galvanism.