At that time I did not reprint the part relating to the condensation of the gases. I find that this omission may be construed into a design to withdraw the statement from publication; I have no reason, however, to alter or weaken a word of it, and so am in a manner constrained to insert it here, where indeed it finds its proper place.]
With respect to the condensation of the gases, I have long ago done justice to those to whom it was really due[1], and now approach the;subject again with considerable reluctance; for though I feel that there is some appearance of confusion, still I regret that Dr. Davy did not leave the matter as it stood. All my papers on the subject in the Transactions of the Royal Society had passed through the hands of Sir Humphry Davy, who had corrected them as he thought fit, and had presented them to that body. Again, all the facts that Dr. Paris has stated upon his own knowledge[2] are correct; he made that statement as his own voluntary act and without any previous communication with me, so that I think I might have been left in that silence which I so much desired.
The facts of the case, as far as I know them, are these:—In the spring of 1823, Mr. Brande was Professor of Chemistry, Sir Humphry Davy Honorary Professor of Chemistry, and I Chemical Assistant, in the Royal Institution. Having to give personal attendance on both the morning and afternoon chemical lectures, my time was very fully occupied. Whenever any circumstance relieved me in part from the duties of my situation, I used to select a subject of research, and try my skill upon it. Chlorine was with me a favourite object, and having before succeeded in discovering new compounds of that element with carbon, I had considered that body more deeply, and resolved to resume its consideration at the first opportunity: accordingly, the absence of Sir Humphry Davy from town having relieved me from a part of the laboratory duty, I took advantage of the leisure and the cold weather and worked upon frozen chlorine, obtaining the results which are published in my paper in the 'Quarterly Journal of Science' for the 1st of April, 1823[3]. On Sir Humphry Davy's return to town, which I think must have been about the end of
