380 Dr. Hare on the Salt Radical Theory. 
saturation three atoms of acid; but the reason why neither iron 
nor chromium can form a binoxide, is a mystery which is not rep- 
resented as explicable agreeably to the new doctrine. As there 
can be no doubt that there is a common rationale of this fact, and 
of the analogous necessity of three atoms of acid to saturate two 
of the resulting sesquioxide, it follows that there is only one 
mystery to explain agreeably to the old view of the constitution 
of oxysalts; but this mystery exists just gs much in relation to 
the new view, substituting oxysulphion pr some other imaginary 
compound radical for oxygen. ‘The mystery, in one case, is 
wherefore two atoms of mercury are capable of taking four 
atoms of oxygen with four of acid, when two atoms of iron can 
only take three of oxygen and three of acid. In the other case, 
the mystery is that two atoms of mercury should take four atoms 
of oxysulphion, while the same number of atoms of iron take no 
more than three. 
25. In the cases above cited, hydracids in combining are made 
to abandon hydrogen; yet the oil of the Dutch chemists is repre- 
sented by: Liebig,* as a “hydrochlorate of the chloride of acetyl,” 
in which muriatic acid is made to act as an acid, in propria per- 
sond, without either losing or gaining hydrogen. In this in- 
stance, it would seem that the celebrated author had precisely 
the same view of an acid which has been heretofore generally 
entertained, that it is a body that will combine with a base with- 
out decomposition. 
26. Agreeably to the language held by this great chemist re- 
specting his hydracids, it would seem as if the essential character 
of acidity were an incapability of existence, excepting by being 
first united with hydrogen, and a susceptibility of being resolved 
into what Berzelius considers as a haloid salt, by being presented 
to oxybases. How, then, does it happen that this decomposition 
does not ensue on the presentation of the chloride of hydrogen 
to the hydruret of acetyl? How does it arrive that the hydro- 
chloric acid forms chlorides with metals, while .in this ethereal 
compound it forms a veritable hydrochlorate? Is it in the lat- 
ter, or in the former case, that it has a true acid reaction? Ac- 
cording to my apprehension, it is only in the latter that it acts as 
an acid, but not asa hydracid. It performs, as I infer, the part 
* Liebig’s Gregory’s Turner, p. 896. 
