170 Dr. Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity. 



692. When perchloride of mercury was subjected to the 

 voltaic current, it did not conduct in the solid state, but it did 

 conduct when fluid. I think, also, that in the latter case it 

 was decomposed ; but there are many interfering circumstances 

 which require examination before a positive conclusion can 

 be drawn. 



693. When the ordinary protoxide of antimony is subjected 

 to the voltaic current in a fused state, it also is decomposed, 

 although the effect from other causes soon ceases (402. 801.). 

 This oxide consists of one proportional of antimony and one 

 and a half of oxygen, and is therefore an exception to the ge- 

 neral law assumed. But in working with this oxide and the 

 chloride, I observed facts which lead me to doubt whether the 

 compounds usually called the protoxide and the protochloride 

 do not often contain other compounds, consisting of single 

 proportions, which are the true proto compounds, and which, 

 in the case of the oxide, might give rise to the decomposition 

 above described. 



694. The ordinary sulphuret of antimony is considered as 

 being the compound with the smallest quantity of sulphur, 

 and analogous in its proportions to the ordinary protoxide. 

 But I find that if it be fused with metallic antimony, a new 

 sulphuret is formed, containing much more of the metal than 

 the former, and separating distinctly, when fused, both from 

 the pure metal on the one hand, and the ordinary gray sul- 

 phuret on the other. In some rough experiments, the metal 

 thus taken up by the ordinary sulphuret of antimony was 

 equal to half the proportion of that previously in the sul- 

 phuret, in which case the new sulphuret would consist of 

 single proportionals. 



695. When this new sulphuret was dissolved in muriatic 

 acid, although a little antimony separated, yet it appeared to 

 me that a true protochloride, consisting of single propor- 

 tionals, was formed, and from that, by alkalies, &c, a true 

 protoxide, consisting also of single proportionals was obtain- 

 able. But 1 could not stop to ascertain this matter strictly 

 by analysis. 



696. I believe, however, that there is such an oxide; that 

 it is often present in variable proportions in what is commonly 

 called protoxide, throwing uncertainty upon the results of its 

 analysis, and causing the electrolytic decomposition above de- 

 scribed. 



697. Upon the whole, it appears probable that all those 

 binary compounds of elementary bodies which are capable of 

 being electrolyzed when fluid, but not whilst solid, according 

 to the law of liquido-conduction (394.), consist of single pro- 

 portionals of their elementary principles ; and it may be be- 



