y be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which
I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a
general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from the
newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it unquestionably
is, is unanticipated.

By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe,
London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this
illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question,
but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the
very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von
Kempelen, who although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is,
without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required),
indebted to the 'Diary' for at least the first hint of his own
undertaking.

The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the
rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a
Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little
apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing either
impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go into
details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon its
manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts, are
seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and date and
precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come upon the
discovery he says he did, at the period designated--nearly eight years
ago--how happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to reap the
immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known would have
resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large, from the
discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man of common
understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he did, and yet
have subsequently acted so like a baby--so like an owl--as Mr. Kissam
admits that he did. By-the-way, who is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole
paragraph in the 'Courier and Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make
a talk'? It must be confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air.
Very little dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion;
and if I were not well aware, from experience, how very easily men of
science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of inquiry,
I should be profoundly astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as
P