Dr. lire on Chloride of Linie. 9 



larly unskilful, and can bear no comparison with Dr. Thom- 

 son's last method, to which he does not allude, though he ani- 

 madverts on the first. " I treated," says he, " the chloride of 

 lime at a gentle heat, with pure potash, prepared by alcohol. 

 I evaporated and calcined the salt produced, in order to de- 

 compose the chlorate, and I precipitated by nitrate of silver 

 the chlorine of the chloride of potassium. The lime was con- 

 verted into sulphate. In another experiment I calcined imme- 

 diately the chloride of lime, and precipitated by nitrate of sil- 

 ver. There was only a small quantity of chlorine disengaged 

 during the calcination. The results obtained gave foe the com- 

 position of the subbichloride of lime, 



Hydrate of lime, 1 atom . . 936.22 67,914 

 Chlorine, 1 atom . . 442.65 32.086 



1379.57 100.000 



And for that of the dissolved neutral chloride ; 



Hydrate of lime, 1 atom 51.416 



• Chlorine, 2 atoms 48.584 



iob.ooo " 



On such procedure as this, it is superfluous to comment. Tiie 

 sequel of his paper seems to shew, that he is not aware of the 

 solution of chloride of lime passing into muriate and carbonate 

 by long ebullition, even to dryness ; a treatment to which he 

 subjected it. 



In the researches which I have made, at many different times, 

 on the nature of the chloride of lime, I have generally sought 

 to combine the information flowing from both synthesis and 

 analysis ; that is, I first converted a known portion of hydrate 

 of lime into bleaching-powder, and then subjected this to ana- 

 lysis. Among the results of experiments in my note-book of 

 1815, I find the following: 500 grains of unslaked quick- 

 lime, in fine powder, from Carrara marble, were exposed in a 

 glass globe to a copious stream of chlorine, (previously passed 

 through a little cold water,) for four days. The increase of 

 weight was noted from time to time, and was found, at the 



