384 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



when compared to the original type, may be considered as water 

 having both its atoms of hydrogen replaced by the radical othyle, 

 C* H' O. This compound is the anhydrous acetic acid, which might 

 be called the acetate of othyle, inasmuch as that radical has, in the 

 formation of the compound, taken the place of the basic potassium 

 in the acetate of potash. 



In like manner the anhydrous benzoic acid, ^^ h* O^* ^^ made 

 by the action of the chloride of benzoile, C^ H^ OCl, on the ben- 

 zoate of potash. It is a crystalline body, perfectly neutral to test- 

 paper, scarcely soluble in water, readily soluble in alcohol and 

 aether. On continued boiling with water, it is converted into hy- 

 drated benzoic acid, 1 atom of the anhydride with 1 atom of water 

 forming 2 atoms of the hydrated acid by an interchange of hydrogen 

 and benzoile. Besides several of these anhydrous acids, Gerhardt 

 has prepared some intermediate acids, analogous to the intermediate 

 aethers, by combining two different radicals in the same group. 



Thus chloride of benzoile with cuminate of potash, ^ O, 



formed cuminate of benzoile, or benzocuminic acid, p, tj^ o^» 



and in like manner several other intermediate acids were prepared. 



In conclusion, the lecturer alluded to a feature of the develop- 

 ment of the human mind in scientific research, which is strikingly 

 illustrated by the substance and form of these results, and of which 

 instances are probably to be found in the history of many others. 

 The explanation of the above reactions consists in a combination of 

 two modes of reasoning, which were developed by different schools, 

 and for many years were used independently of one another. Ger- 

 hardt, to whose researches and writings some important steps in the 

 doctrine of types are owing, formerly believed the truths which he 

 saw from that point of view to be incompatible with the idea of 

 radicals; but he now joins those chemists who find in each of these 

 notions a necessary and most natural complement to the other. 



May we not hope that such may be the result in other cases of 

 difference of opinion on scientific questions, which the progress of 

 knowledge will show to have been owing to the incompleteness and 

 one-sidedness of each view, rather than to anything absolutely erro- 

 neous in either ? 



LXIV. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON THE CHEMICAL COMBINATIONS RESULTING FROM THE CON- 

 TACT or SOLIDS WITH LIQUIDS IN VIRTUE OF FEEBLE ACTIONS. 

 BY M. BECQUEREL. 



ri IHE study of the chemical phsenomena resulting from the contact 

 X. of solids with liquids in virtue of feeble actions, whether they pro- 

 ceed from double decomposition, with or without the accompaniment 

 of electrical forces, or from simjile contact action, and indeed what- 

 ever may be their origin, still occupies my attention as regards their 



