In November 1815 and January 1816 his papers on Fire-damp were read. He then worked upon flame, and in January 1817 his researches on flame and his splendid invention of the Davy Lamp were laid before the Royal Society. At this time the popular reputation of Davy reached its climax, and, looking back, we can now see that his life should have ended here; he was then only 38 years old. He was presented with a service of plate as a token of his invaluable invention by the coal owners of the Tyne and Wear. He bequeathed this to the Royal Society for the foundation of a medal, to be given yearly to the chemist who made the greatest discovery. This prize should be looked on as a lasting memorial of the countless lives which Davy and other chemists, by the application of their scientific researches, have preserved. Year after year, from 1817 to 1826, Davy communicated new investigations to the Royal Society. He worked on chlorine, on phosphorus, on mists. He went abroad again, and he tried chemically to unfold the Herculanean papyri. He returned in 1820, and was elected President of the Royal Society after the death of Sir Joseph Banks. Then he worked on magnetic phenomena produced by electricity, on electric phenomena in vacuo, on water in the cavities of crystals, on new phenomena of electro-magnetism. He became jealous of the discoveries of Faraday, and he sent a paper to the Royal Society on the ‘Application of Liquids Formed by the Condensation of Gases as Mechanical Agents.’ In 1823 he began to work on the defence of the copper sheathing of ships, and in 1824 he had two papers published on this subject. He went in a Government steamboat to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark for the purpose of trying the influence of motion on his protectors. He had already suffered for a year at this time from ill health. In 1825 his paper on the ‘Preservation of Metals by Electrochemistry’ was published. In practice his plan failed, and he was too ill to bear lightly the disappointment of his expectations. In 1826 he had a paper read on the ‘Relations of Electrical and Chemical Changes.’ It contained but little new matter. On November 30 he was elected President of the Royal Society for the last time. He was dangerously ill on the day of election. In the middle of December 1826 he was struck with paralysis of the right side. With the restlessness of disease on January 22, about a month after his attack, he set out for Italy. He had the worst possible journey across Mont Cenis, and, after being three weeks at Ravenna, in the middle of March he wrote to Mr. Poole: