BETWEEN MURIATIC ACID AND CHLORINE. 331 
violation of chemical analogy in this supposition. The quan- 
a oa! ¢ . 11.32 : 
tity will be represented by the fraction sins being nearly one- 
fourth. 
If chlorine, however, be a simple body, which forms with 
hydrogen, muriatic acid gas, then sal ammoniac is rightly na- 
med Hydrochlorate of Ammonia. And since ammonia itself 
results from three volumes of hydrogen and one of azote, con- 
densed into two volumes, that saline body can contain neither 
water, nor its indispensable element oxygen. 
On the other hand, if chlorine be oxymuriatic acid, then the 
fourth part of water existing in the resulting muriatic acid gas, 
must necessarily enter into the sal ammoniac as an essential 
constituent ; for the whole ponderable matter of that gas, as 
well as of the ammonia, passes into the salt. This water being 
as indispensable an ingredient of sal ammoniac as it is of oil of 
vitriol ; heat alone can no more separate it from the former,. 
than it can from the latter compound. 
Moreover, if we decompose sal ammoniac by the agency of 
any body containing oxygen, an evident source of fallacy exists 
relative to the watery product, which may be referred by the 
supporters of the chloridic theory, not to the salt itself, but to 
the hydrogen of the hydrochloric acid, united with the oxygen 
of the decomposing substance. This ambiguous interpretation, 
is experimentally illustrated, in my paper on the Ammoniacal 
Salts. 
If, however, we shall decompose that. equivocal salt, by means 
of a substance, which certainly contains no oxygen; and if we 
still obtain water in nearly the above proportions, then this re- 
sult is no longer equivocal, nor will it admit of two interpreta- 
tions. We must thenceforth be: compelled to recognise in mu- 
‘ viatic acid gas, as in the other acid vapours, waTer as an ingre- 
ite 2 dient 
