OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 863 



In another article of the same work, the objection is raised that " the 

 antimoniate of oxide of antimony (Sb04) always contains excess of 

 oxide."* This is, so far as I know, mere assertion, utterly unsup- 

 ported by facts. On the contrary, it is stated in another article of the 

 same volume of the same work,t that the body in question is obtained 

 in a state of purity by " ignition of nitrate of antimony or of antimonic 

 acid " ; that is, by the very operation by which it was obtained in the 

 determination of the atomic weight. The origin of this assertion may, 

 I think, be traced to a passage in Schneider's paper,| in which he says 

 that " there is no proof that this substance (Sb04) does not give off 

 oxygen when strongly ignited " ; and that to this cause may perhaps 

 be ascribed the difference in the results of the earlier and the later 

 determinations of Berzelius. But Schneider made no experiments 

 himself to prove that it does give off oxygen, and it is not probable 

 that, were this the case, the fact would have remained unobserved by 

 Berzelius.§ 



Opposed to these unsupported assertions we have the general expe- 

 rience of chemists, and the high authority of Bun sen in particular, 

 who declares that " the best way of determining antimony is as anti- 

 moniate of oxide of antimony, since this body is neither volatilized nor 

 decomposed by ignition in contact with air." || Finally, it was shown 

 by me, by direct experiment, that the product of the action of nitric 

 acid upon metallic antimony has, after having been ignited, the compo- 

 sition of antimoniate of oxide of antimony, viz. Sb04 or SbaOg. The 

 difference between the composition calculated upon this formula and 

 that actually found was such as to indicate an error in the analysis 



* " Doch scheint ein Ueberschuss von Antimonoxyd bei dem antimonsauren 

 Antimonoxyd kaum zu vermeiden." — Art. Atomgewichte, S. 473. 



t Art. Antimonige Sdure, S. 73. 



f Loc. cit, S. 294. 



^ The difference in his results was attributed by Berzelius himself to the fact 

 that his earlier experiments were conducted in vessels of glass, which were incapable 

 of supporting the temperature required for the complete conversion of SbOs into 

 Sb04. 



II " Was zuniichst die Bestimmung des Antimons anbelangt, so wagt man dasselbe 

 am zweckmassigsten als antimonsaures Antimonoxyd, Sb208, indem diese Oxyda- 

 tions stufe bei dem Gliihen an der Luft weder fliichtig noch zersetzbar ist." — Unter- 

 scheidung und Trennumj des Arseniks vom Antimon und Zinn, Ann. d. Chera. u. 

 Phys., Bd. CVI. S. 3. 



