"Each phase in the story of this discovery indeed partakes of the marvellous. Sometime during the first fortnight in October, 1807, he obtained his first decisive result; and on the 19th of November he delivered what is generally regarded as the most memorable of all his Bakerian lectures, "On some new Phenomena of chemical Changes produced by Electricity, particularly the Decomposition of the fixed Alkalies, and the Exhibition of the new substances which constitute their bases; and on the general Nature of alkaline Bodies.""