AND ON SOME SUBJECTS OF CHEMICAL THEORY. 3lT 
The doctrine I have illustrated, affords a satisfactory expla- 
nation of the properties of the compounds fermed by oxymu- 
riatic acid with certain inflammables, particularly with sulphur 
and phosphorus. These undoubtedly present an anomaly in 
the other views that have been given ef their constitution. In 
the old doctrine, they are considered as compounds ef two real 
acids ;—one of muriatic, with phosphorous or phosphoric acid ; 
the other of muriatic, with sulphurous or sulphuric acid. But 
they have none of the properties which would be looked for in 
such a combination; they have no acidity, or if any appear in 
one of the compounds with phosphorus, it is to a very limited 
and doubtful extent ; and they are substances even which have 
little energy of chemical action. In the. new doctrine they are 
cable as compounds of chlorine with their bases, sulphur 
and phosphorus. Of course, as these bases form powerful acids 
with oxygen, and as chlorine is considered as an element of 
similar agency as oxygen, communicating similar powers, and 
conferring acidity even on hydrogen, they might, with not less 
reason than on the other doctrine, be expected to be acids of 
the greatest strength. The view I have stated accounts for their 
characters. They are ternary compounds, of the radical of mu- 
riatic acid with the particular inflammable,—sulphur, or phos- 
phorus, with oxygen. The oxygen is not in sufficient quantity 
to communicate acidity, or, in one of the combinations of phos- 
phorus, does so only to a very slight extent. But when water 
is added, a sufficient proportion of oxygen is supplied to pro- 
duce this result, and the acidity is exalted by the correspond- 
‘ing hydrogen entering into the combination. ' What has been 
called Phosgene Gas, procured under certain circumstances 
from the action of oxymuriatic gas and carbonic oxide, may 
be regarded as of a similar nature, the agency of a small por- 
tion of w water or of hydrogen being probably essential to its for- 
. mation, 
