Already in other countries public and ample means have been provided for pursuing these investigations. They have had their origin in this country, and it would be dishonourable to a nation so great, so powerful, and so rich if, from the want of pecuniary resources, they should be completed abroad. An appeal to enlightened individuals on this subject can scarcely be made in vain. It is proposed that the instrument and apparatus be erected in the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where it shall be employed in the advancement of this new department of science. The Managers’ Minutes then say: The above paper having been laid before the board of managers, they felt it their indispensable duty instantly to communicate the same to every member of the Institution, lest the slightest delay might furnish an opportunity to other countries for accomplishing this great work, which originated in the brilliant discoveries recently made at the Royal Institution. Lord Dundas, W. Watson, Thomas Bernard, and C. Hatchett, the managers present, agreed to subscribe to this undertaking, and ordered that a book be opened at the steward’s office for the purpose of entering the names of all those who may wish to contribute towards this important national object.[37] The sum wanted was soon raised, and Davy thus described the battery: ‘It consists of 200 instruments, connected together in regular order, each composed of ten double plates, arranged in cells of porcelain, and containing in each plate thirty-two square inches; so that the whole number of double plates is 2,000, and the whole surface 128,000 square inches. This battery was charged with sixty parts water and one part of nitric acid. It gave a spark from charcoal points through four inches of air.’ On July 12 the Laboratory Notes say, ‘Tried the experiments upon the decomposition of the earths by iron wire with the happiest results.’ These were obtained with the battery of only twenty pair. On July 18 he wrote, ‘In pursuit of the researches on the deoxygenation of diamond and charcoal. ‘Is not diamond the 2-oxide of carbon, charcoal the 1-oxide, the gaseous oxide of carbon a triple compound of hydrogen, nitrogen, and charcoal?’ On September 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 experiments were tried on the production of cold by induced electricity. He tried the decomposition of sulphur ‘with success.’ He tried to decompose mercury in the Torricellian vacuum ‘with success apparently.’ ‘Sulphur, after giving out hydrogen by electricity, had lost its yellow colour and _was became brownish_, but still non-conducting, crystalline, and transparent.’ Numberless experiments were made on the action of potassium on ammonia and on nitrogen. In November he must have injured his right hand, for his notes are made with his left hand on the 19th and 20th of this month.