the name given by the French chemists to the mineral alkali, which is found native in many parts of the world: it is obtained also from common salt, and from the ashes of the kali, a species of falfola. See Chemistry Index, for an account of its properties and combinations: but long after that article was written, soda and potash were decomposed by means of galvanism; and the alkalies, hitherto considered as simple substances, appear, from the experiments of Mr Davy, who first made the discovery, to be compounds of oxygen and a metallic base. Mr Davy's conclusions have been controverted by some of the French chemists; and as the subject may perhaps in a few months receive some farther elucidation, we shall delay our account of the whole till we come to describe the apparatus by which the experiments are conducted. See Through, Galvanic.

SODA is also a name for a heat in the stomack, or heart-burn. See Medicine, No 275.