Another and even more important theoretical result that flowed
from Davy's experiments during this first decade of the century
was the proof that no elementary substances other than hydrogen
and oxygen are produced when pure water is decomposed by the
electric current. It was early noticed by Davy and others that
when a strong current is passed through water, alkalies appear at
one pole of the battery and acids at the other, and this though
the water used were absolutely pure. This seemingly told of the
creation of elements--a transmutation but one step removed from
the creation of matter itself--under the influence of the new
"force." It was one of Davy's greatest triumphs to prove, in the
series of experiments recorded in his famous Bakerian lecture of
1806, that the alleged creation of elements did not take place,
the substances found at the poles of the battery having been
dissolved from the walls of the vessels in which the water
experimented upon had been placed. Thus the same implement which
had served to give a certain philosophical warrant to the fading
dreams of alchemy banished those dreams peremptorily from the
domain of present science.

"As early as 1800," writes Davy, "I had found that when separate
portions of distilled water, filling two glass tubes, connected
by moist bladders, or any moist animal or vegetable substances,
were submitted to the electrical action of the pile of Volta by
means of gold wires, a nitro-muriatic solution of gold appeared
in the tube containing the positive wire, or the wire
transmitting the electricity, and a solution of soda in the
opposite tube; but I soon ascertained that the muriatic acid owed
its existence to the animal or vegetable matters employed; for