—~— ae 
. 
{ 309 ] 
PART II. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION OF MURIATIC ACID 
GAS, AND ON SOME OTHER SUBJECTS OF CHEMICAL THEORY. 
ApmirtTine water to be procured from muriatic acid gas in 
those forms of experiment, direct or indirect, in which the 
agency of no other substance that can afford it, is introduced, 
the conclusion seems necessarily to follow, which forms the ba- 
sis of one of the two systems under which the relations of oxy- 
muriatic and muriatic acids have of late years been explained, 
—that oxymuriatic acid is.a compound of muriatic acid with 
oxygen; and that muriatic acid in its gaseous state, contains 
combined water. This doctrine, accordingly, may be main- 
tained, and may even perhaps be just. It is not, therefore, 
from the consideration of any deficiency in its support, that I 
depart from it in the following observations, but that I consi- 
der the view I have to propose as perhaps more probable, or at 
least as, on the whole, according better with the present state 
of chemical theory. In a science such as Chemistry, the prin- 
ciples of which rest, rather on probable evidence, than on de- 
monstration, it is of importance to. present a -subject in every 
point of view under which it may be surveyed ; and this must 
serve as an apology for the speculations I have now to offer. 
There 
