$382 EXPERIMENTS ON THE RELATION 
dient essential to its constitution ; and to acknowledge that 
chlorine consists of a base united to oxygen, or is in fact oxy- 
genated muriatic acid, as Lavoisier and Bertuo.zer taught, and 
as the whole chemical world believed, till their faith was late- 
ly shaken or subverted, by the predominating genius of Sir 
Humpury Davy. 
With the view of deciding the above important controversy, 
I performed the following experiments. 
Of sal ammoniac, kept for some time in a platina capsule at 
a subliming heat, to remove every particle of adhering mois- 
ture, a known quantity was put into a glass tube, and made to 
slide down to the one end, which had been hermetically sealed. 
Over it a given weight of bright metallic lamine, cut into slen- 
der segments, was lightly pressed. The salt occupied in gene- 
ral about one inch of the tube; the Jamine four or five inches. 
Silver, copper, and turnings of iron made with a dry tool, were 
employed in successive experiments. The open extremity of 
the tube was drawn out to a point, and recurved, so as to pass 
under a vessel inverted on the mercurial pneumatic trough. 
Between this and the portion containing the metal, there was 
a length of six or more inches of tube, which was kept cool. 
In one variation of the experiment, a tube of Reaumur’s por- 
celain was used for containing the materials, to which was 
firmly luted by a collar of caoutchouc, a glass tube, with a 
little globe blown in its middle, and its loose end plunged, as 
usual, into the mercurial trough. . 
When tubes of crystal glass were employed, the part con- 
taining the materials was lodged in a semicylindrical case of 
iron, which traversed a small charcoal furnace, five or six 
inches in diameter. The metallic laminz being raised to full 
ignition in day-light, the case and tube were slightly moved 
forward, 
