Humphry Davy to continental Europe alone.) Davy then published his "Elements of Chemical Philosophy, part 1, volume 1", though other parts of this title were never completed. He made notes for a second edition, but it was never required. In October 1813, he and his wife, accompanied by Michael Faraday as his scientific assistant (also treated as a valet), travelled to France to collect the second edition of the "prix du Galvanisme," a medal that Napoleon Bonaparte had awarded Davy for his electro-chemical work. Faraday noted that 'Tis indeed a strange venture at this time, to trust ourselves in a foreign and
Humphry Davy instructions in chemistry. Davy was acquainted with the Wedgwood family, who spent a winter at Penzance. Thomas Beddoes and John Hailstone were engaged in a geological controversy on the rival merits of the Plutonian and Neptunist hypotheses. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Davies Gilbert and made Davy's acquaintance. Beddoes, who had established at Bristol a 'Pneumatic Institution,' needed an assistant to superintend the laboratory. Gilbert recommended Davy, and in 1798 Gregory Watt showed Beddoes the "Young man's Researches on Heat and Light", which were subsequently published by him in the first volume of "West-Country Contributions".