1826.] contained in Sea Water, 425 



M, Gay-Lussac's Report upon the Memoir of M, Balard respect- 

 ing a 7iew Substance ; extracted from the Process-verbal of 

 Monday y Aug. 14, 1826. 



MM. Vauquelin, Thenard, and myself, have been commis- 

 sioned by the Academy to report our opinion respecting a 

 memoir of M. Balard's, the object of which is to describe the 

 properties of a new substance which he has found in sea water ; 

 and we have performed this commission. 



M. Balard has given this substance the name ofmuride; but 

 this denomination being Hable to several objections, we have, 

 with the consent of the author, called it Brome, from (Spcoi/,o§, a 

 bad smell. 



Brome is fluid at the average temperature of the atmosphere, 

 and even at 18° below 0° centig. In quantity its colour is of a 

 deep reddish-brown ; in small quantity it is of a hyacinthine 

 red ; the colour of its vapour exactly similar to that of nitrous 

 acid ; it is very volatile, and is converted into vapour at 47° 

 centig. Its smell is very strong, and much resembles that of 

 chlorine ; its density is about 3. 



Brome destroys colours in the same manner as chlorine ; it is 

 soluble in water, alcohol, and ether. M. Balard has combined 

 it with a great number of simple substances, and obtained very 

 remarkable compounds. Chlorine is more powerful than brome, 

 but in its turn it is stronger than iodine. This property renders 

 it very probable that brome is only a compound of chlorine and 

 iodine, as may be suspected from the affinity which it has for 

 these two bodies. To form an exact idea of the properties of 

 brome, it must be composed with chlorine ; with hydrogen it 

 forms an hydracid, hydrobromic acid, and with oxygen, bromic 

 acid, the compounds of which, with basis, have the strongest 

 analogy with the chlorates. When heated, it decomposes like 

 chlorine all the soluble alkaline oxides, and evolves oxygen ; 

 when cold, it combines with these oxides, and forms bromurets, 

 which are readily decomposable by heat and the weak acids. It 

 combines also with bicarburetted hydrogen gas, and produces 

 an oleaginous fluid of a very sweet ethereal smell. 



The weight of its atom is 9*328, that of oxygen being unity. 

 M. Balard, when sending his memoir to the Academy, accom- 

 panied it with some small portions of brome, and of some of its 

 combinations, with which we have made some experiments. We 

 have also obtained brome by the process described by M. Balard, 

 by treating the mother-waters of the salt marshes of the plain of 

 Aven, which was sent to us by our colleague M. d'Arcet. 



If the few experiments which we have been able to perform 

 has not afforded us that certainty of the existence of brome as a 

 very simple body, which, in the present day, is properly required, 

 "we consider it at least very probable that it is so. The memoif 



