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 sea-weeds from the water of the
ocean, which convinced him that these vegetables performed the same part
in purifying 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
expements. 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