68 Daniell on the Nature of the Products 



acid from ether, and an exactly similar salt resulted. Both 

 products were carefully dried upon filtering paper, and set 

 apart. At the end of a few days they were examined : the first 

 was wholly unaltered in its appearance, but the second had 

 assumed a grey hue, and was found upon examination with a 

 lens, to be full of minute globules of revived mercury. 



From hence it would appear that the acid formed during the 

 slow combustion of ether is in fact the acetic, but combined 

 with some substance of a highly disoxygenising nature, different 

 from ether. In this manner we can account for the rapid 

 reduction of the metallic oxides in the former experiments, and 

 also for the instantaneous change of the soluble peracetate of 

 mercury into the insoluble proto-acetate. In the latter case it 

 is clear that the disoxygenating substance (whatever its nature 

 may be,) took from the oxide of mercury in the peracetate one 

 proportion of its oxygen, and precipitated the salt in the form 

 of proto-acetate. 



Upon this view of the subject it would seem to follow that 

 the peroxide of mercury formed per se differed from the per- 

 oxide formed from nitric acid, in containing either combined 

 or mixed a portion of protoxide. To bring this idea to the 

 proof, I proceeded as follows. 



Exp. 9. — Fifty grains of the nitric peroxide of mercury (red 

 precipitate,) were put into pure muriatic acid. The whole 

 dissolved readily, except a slight cloudiness. Fifty grains of 

 the peroxide per se were treated in the same manner. A consi- 

 derable quantity of grey insoluble matter remained, which being 

 separated weighed 0.7 grains. It consisted chiefly of metallic 

 mercury in a state of minute division, mixed with a very small 

 portion of calomel. The quantity of this latter indicated, con- 

 trary to my expectation, but a very minute proportion of pro- 

 toxide, but it is obvious that the metallic mercury during 

 the process of solution in the acetic acid, combined with one 

 proportion of the oxygen of the peroxide, forming thereby pro- 

 toxide both by composition and decomposition. Why this 

 should happen during the action of the acetic, and not during 

 the action of the muriatic acid, is not perhaps at the first view 



