Sir Humphry Davy was a Cornish chemist and inventor. He is probably best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. In 1794 Davy was apprenticed to John Bingham Borlase, a surgeon in a large practice at Penzance. Besides science Davy was a poet and philosopher. Consolations of Travel was written while the author was dying. The book is in the form of dialogues. The dialogues are entitled: The Vision, Discussions connected to the vision in the Colosaeum, The Unknown, The Proteus or Immortality, The Chemical Philosopher, and Pola or time,