now near enough to see that they were bears of a very large size. To turn aside was impossible, as the jungle was of a kind impenetrable to a man, being full of the very long thorn, called the Buffaloe thorn, from its toughness. To go back never entered my mind-indeed I had little time for thought, as I was now within thirty paces of them. They lifted up their heads and marked their anger by a short roar, which I returned by charging them till I found myself within three yards of them, without their offering to move away. They made a step towards me, the largest one, evidently the male, about its length before the other ;-I kept my face towards them, and edged round so as to get on that side of them by which I was to pursue my route. At this moment they made a short bound at me, which I escaped by springing backwards, but still fronting them, and they missed me a second time in the same way. These were more like the consecutive bounds of a clumsy gallop, than anything else, but the third I saw was to be my last. All that I remember is, uttering a sound of horror between a scream and a roar, and as the foremost animal rose at me, I struck him with all the force of my body in the nose and teeth with my brandy bottle, the only thing in my hands. I need not say that the bottle broke into shivers ; and whether it was the blow on the nose-a part, I have since heard, of great tenderness in bears-or that part of the brandy went into his eyes and mouth and astonished him, or both these things together, I know not; but he turned round and moved off, followed by his companion down the path away from me, and so into the jungle. The female at no time had taken a decided part, keeping rather in the rear, and only backing her mate by encouraging grunts. The whole business, I may say, scarcely occupied a minute's time, during which I did not in the least lose my presence of mind, probably from the shortness of the time. I felt so conscious indeed of my own strength, that

had there been but one bear, though I might have suffered much, I was confident I could have dislocated his jaw. But the two together quite discomfited me. I said that I never lost my presence of mind during the rencontre; but I own that I stood as if fixed to the spot while they moved off, and till they were out of sight. My first impulse was then to run, which I continued to do for about three miles, when I reached the large plain, which I guessed to be that of Yallé. I then fell down quite exhausted, and lay on the ground for above half an hour, when I rose and moved slowly across the large open ground to the other side of it, where I knew the rest-house to be situated. The latter part of the way was through a path in the jungle for about 100 yards; and I confess I was so alarmed, that I could not face the risk of this, and therefore steered my course down towards the sea-coast. At last my way was happily stopped by the river which flows there, and I laid myself down on my face, and satisfied my thirst by drinking, as you may conceive, most inordinately. Quite dark as it was, there was little chance of my being able to find the solitary clay-built rest-house, which I knew to be thereabouts. So I stretched myself on the sand, and slept there till the moon rose soon after midnight, when I resumed my search successfully, and finished my sleep on its earthen floor. In the morning, at the first dawn, I endeavored to find the hut of the letter-carriers, but to no purpose, though I actually viewed one of them for a moment; but he, instead of obeying my loud summons to come to my assistance, fled and concealed himself. This, I am ashamed to say, is but too often the conduct of the natives under similar circumstances, knowing full well beforehand, that they are only required to act as guide, or to carry luggage, for either of which services they are frequently but inadequately rewarded. I again, therefore, started on my way to Pallitopanie, over twelve miles of deep sand, where I arrived with difficulty at three o'clock,

almost dead from the scorching rays of the sun, fatigue, and hunger; having ate nothing from the morning of my embarkation till I reached this place, a space of time of about fiftythree hours. Luckily it had rained, and I occasionally found water to drink in the holes made by the feet of the wild elephants and buffaloes. The kind care of the only European at the post, an honest corporal of the 19th regiment, soon brought me round, by preparing a hot bath for me, and a good currie, not to mention a share of his brandy bottle, to compensate for the one which the bear had cost me. Next day he escorted me with his musket on his shoulder to Hambantotte, where my labor ended, as I got housed with my friend the Collector, and found my servants and baggage arrived. I must not finish without remarking on the brandy bottle. It was actually forced upon me in spite of my refusal, by a gentleman who

saw me embark on board of the dhoney, and it was nearly broken from want of a cork-screw to open it, in order to relieve the wife of a soldier who was on board going to join her husband, and who being sea-sick, took a longing for this panacea. It was by the merest accident that after this I retained it in my hand, when I gave up my portmanteau to the elephant, and it seems almost to have been so arranged by an interposition of Providence."

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY was born December 17, 1779, at Penzance, in Cornwall. His family was ancient, and above the middle class; his paternal great grandfather had consider able landed property in the parish of Budgwin, and his father possessed a small paternal estate opposite St. Michael's Mount, called Farfal, on which he died in 1795, after having injured his fortune by expending considerable sums in attempting agricultural improvements. Sir Humphry received the first rudiments of his education at the grammar-schools of Penzance and Truro at the former place, he resided with Mr. John Tomkin, surgeon, a benevolent and intelligent man, who had been intimately connected with his maternal grandfather, and treated him with a degree of kindness little less than parental. His genius was originally inclined to poetry; and there are many

natives of Penzance who remember his poems and verses, written at the early age of nine years. He cultivated this bias till his fifteenth year, when he became the pupil of Mr. (since Dr.) Borlase, of Penzance, an ingenious surgeon, intending to prepare himself for graduating as a physician at Edinburgh. As a proof of his uncommon mind, at this early age, it is worthy of mention, that Mr. Davy laid down for himself a plan of education, which embraced the circle of the sciences. By his eighteenth year he had acquired the rudiments of botany, anatomy, and physiology, the simpler mathematics, metaphysics, natural philosophy, and chemistry. But chemistry soon arrested his whole attention. Having made some experiments on the air disengaged by seaweeds from the water of the ocean, which convinced him that these vegetables performed the same part in pu

rifying the air dissolved in water which land-vegetables act in the atmosphere; he communicated them to Dr. Beddoes, who had at that time circulated proposals for publishing a journal of philosophical contributions from the West of England. This produced a correspondence between Dr. Beddoes and Mr. Davy, in which the Doctor proposed that Mr. Davy, who was at this time only nineteen years of age, should suspend his plan of going to Edinburgh, and take a part in experiments which were then about to be instituted at Bristol, for investigating the medical powers of factitious airs. To this proposal Mr. Davy consented, on condition that he should have the uncontrolled superintendence of the experiments. About this time he became acquainted with Davies Gilbert, Esq. M. P. a gentleman of high scientific attainments, (now President of the Royal Society,) with whom he formed a friendship which has always continued; and to Mr. Gilbert's judicious advice may be attributed Mr. Davy's adoption of and perseverance in the study of chemistry. With Dr. Beddoes, Mr. Davy resided for a considerable time, and was constantly occupied in new chemical investigations. Here, he discovered the respirability of nitrous oxide, and made a number of laborious experiments on gaseous bodies, which he afterwards published in "Researches Chemical and Philosophical," a work that was universally well received by the chemical world, and created a high reputation for its author, at that time only twenty-one years of age. This led to his introduction to Count Rumford, and to his being elected Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Institution in Albemarle street. On obtaining this appointment Mr. Davy gave up all his views of the medical profession, and devoted himself entirely to chemistry.

Mr. Davy's first experiments as Professor of Chemistry in the Royal

Institution, were made on the substance employed in the process of tanning, with others to which similar properties were ascribed, in consequence of the discovery made by M. Seguier, of Paris, of the peculiar vegetable matter, now called tannin. He was, during the same period, frequently occupied in experiments on galvanism.

To the agriculturist, chemistry is of the first consideration. The dependence of agriculture upon chemical causes had been previously noticed, but it was first completely demonstrated in a course of lectures before the Board of Agriculture, which Mr. Davy commenced in the year 1802, and continued for ten years. This series of lectures contained much popular and practical information, and belongs to the most useful of Mr. Davy's scientific labors; for the application of chemistry to agriculture is one of its most important results: and so rapid were the discoveries of the author, that in preparing these discourses for publication, a few years afterwards, he was under the necessity of making several alterations, to adapt them to the improved state of chemical knowledge, which his own labors had, in that short time, produced.

In 1803, he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1805, a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He now enjoyed the friendship of most of the distinguished literary men and philosophers of the metropolis, and enumerated among his intimate friends, Sir Joseph Banks, Cavendish, Hatchett, Wollaston, Children, Tennant, and other eminent men. At the same time he corresponded with the principal chemists of every part of Europe. In 1806, he was appointed to deliver, before the Royal Society, the Bakerian lecture, in which he displayed some very interesting new agencies of electricity, by means of the celebrated galvanic apparatus.*

Soon afterwards, he made one of the most brilliant discoveries of modern times, in the decomposition of two fixed alkalies, which, in direct refutation of the hypothesis previously adopted, were found to consist of a peculiar metallic base united with a large quantity of oxygen. These al kalies were potash and soda, and the metals thus discovered were called potassium and sodium. Mr. Davy was equally successful in the application of galvanism to the decomposition of the earths. About this time, he became Secretary of the Royal Society. In 1808, Mr. Davy received a prize from the French Institute. During the greater part of 1810, he was employed on the combinations of oxymuriatic gas and oxygen; and towards the close of the same year, he delivered a course of lectures before the Dublin Society, and received from Trinity College, Dublin, the honorary degree of LL. D.

In the year 1812, Mr. Davy married his amiable lady, then Mrs. Apreece, widow of Shuckburgh Ashby Apreece, Esq. and daughter and heiress of the late Charles Kerr, of Kelso, Esq. By his union with this lady, Mr. Davy acquired not only a considerable fortune, but the inestimable treasure of an affectionate and exemplary wife, and a congenial friend and companion, capable of appreciating his character and attainments. A few days previously to his marriage, he received the honor of knighthood from his Majesty, then Prince Regent, being the first person on whom he conferred that dignity.

We now arrive at the most important result of Sir Humphry Davy's labors, viz. the invention of the SAFETY-LAMP for coal mines, which has been generally and successfully adopted throughout Europe. This invention has been the means of preserving many valuable lives, and preventing horrible mutilations, more terrible even than death; and were this Sir Humphry Davy's only invention, it would secure him an immortality in the annals of civilization and science,

The general principle of this discovery may be described as follows :

"The frequency of accidents, arising from the explosion of the firedamp, or inflammable gas of the coalmines, mixed with atmospherical air, occasioned the formation of a committee at Sunderland, for the purpose of investigating the causes of these calamities, and of endeavoring to discover and apply a preventive. Sir Humphry received an invitation, in 1815, from Dr. Gray, one of the members of the committee; in consequence of which he went to the North of England, and visiting some of the principal collieries in the neighborhood of Newcastle, soon convinced himself that no improvement could be made in the mode of ventilation, but that the desired preventive must be sought in a new method of lighting the mines, free from danger, and which, by indicating the state of the air in the part of the mine where inflammable air was disengaged, so as to render the atmosphere explosive, should oblige the miners to retire till the workings were properly cleared. The common means then employed for lighting the dangerous part of the mines consisted of a steel wheel revolving in contact with flint, and affording a succession of sparks : but this apparatus always required a person to work it, and was not entirely free from danger. The fire-damp was known to be light carburetted hydrogen gas; but its relations to combustion had not been examined. It is chiefly produced from what are called blowers or fissures in the broken strata, near dykes. Sir Humphry made various experiments on its combustibility and explosive nature; and discovered that the fire-damp requires a very strong heat for its inflammation; that azote and carbonic acid, even in very small proportions, diminished the velocity of the inflammation; that mixtures of the gas would not explode in metallic canals or troughs, where their diameter was less than one-seventh of an inch, and their depth considerable in proportion

to their diameter; and that explosions could not be made to pass through such canals, or through very fine wire sieves, or wire gauze. The consideration of these facts led Sir Humphry to adopt a lamp, in which the flame, by being supplied with only a limited quantity of air, should produce such a quantity of azote and carbonic acid as to prevent the explosion of the fire-damp, and which, by the nature of its apertures for giving admittance and egress to the air, should be rendered incapable of communicating any explosion to the external air. These requisites were found to be afforded by air-tight lanterns, of various constructions, supplied with air from tubes or canals of small diameter, or from apertures covered with wire-gauze, placed below the flame, through which explosions cannot be communicated; and having a chimney at the upper part, for carrying off the foul air. Sir Humphry soon afterwards found that a constant flame might be kept up from the explosive mixture issuing from the apertures of a wiregauze sieve. He introduced a very small lamp in a cylinder, made of wire-gauze, having six thousand four hundred apertures in the square inch. He closed all apertures except those of the gauze, and introduced the lamp, burning brightly within the cylinder, into a large jar, containing several quarts of the most explosive mixture of gas from the distillation of coal and air; the flame of the wick immediately disappeared, or rather was lost, for the whole of the interior of the cylinder became filled with a feeble but steady flame of a green color, which burnt for some minutes, till it had entirely destroyed the explosive power of the atmosphere. This discovery led to a most important improvement in the lamp, divested the fire-damp of all its terrors, and applied its powers, formerly so destructive, to the production of a useful light. Some minor improvements, originating in Sir Humphry's researches into the nature of flame, were afterwards effected. Experi

ments of the most satisfactory nature were speedily made, and the invention was soon generally adopted. Some attempts were made to dispute the honor of this discovery with its author, but his claims were confirmed by the investigations of the first philosophers of the age."-The coal owners of the Tyne and Wear evinced their sense of the benefits resulting from this invention, by presenting Sir Humphry with a handsome service of plate, worth nearly two thousand pounds, at a public dinner at Newcastle, October 11, 1817.

In 1813, Sir Humphry was elected a corresponding member of the Institute of France, and vice-president of the Royal Institution; in 1817, one of the eight associates of the Royal Academy; in 1818 created a baronet, and during the last ten years he has been elected a member of most of the learned bodies of Europe.

We could occupy many pages with the interesting details of Sir Humphry Davy's travels in different parts of Europe for scientific purposes, particularly to investigate the causes of volcanic phenomena, to instruct the miners of the coal districts in the application of his safety-lamp, and to examine the state of the Herculaneum manuscripts and to illustrate the remains of the chemical arts of the ancients. He analyzed the colors used in painting by the ancient Greek and Roman artists. His experiments were chiefly made on the paintings in the baths of Titus, the ruins called the baths of Livia, in the remains of other palaces and baths of ancient Rome, and in the ruins of Pompeii. By the kindness of his friend Canova, who was charged with the care of the works connected with the ancient art in Rome, he was enabled to select with his own hands specimens of the different pigments, that had been formed in vases discovered in the excavations, which had been lately made beneath the ruins of the palace of Titus, and to compare them with the colors fixed on the walls, or detached in fragments of stucco. The results