: £ 
‘ . ae 
Dr. Hare on the Salt Radical Theory. 383. 
with even one equivalent of sulphuric acid, either of the pro- 
toxides of those metals may combine with two equivalents of 
that acid, so energetically as to be fusible without decomposition 
into a dry mass: I allude here especially to’ the well known 
bisulphate of potash. I have already animadverted upon the 
fallacy of assuming that muriatic acid gives a bichloride on 
meeting with a bioxide, only in consequence of the presence of 
two atoms of oxygen in the latter, (17, &c.) 
87. There does not appear to me to be any more difficulty in 
assigning a reason for the union of an oxybase with an oxacid, 
than in accounting for the union of the radicals, entering respect- 
ively into their composition, with oxygen. 
38. The more any two bodies differ in their electro-chemical 
habitudes, the greater is their reciprocal affinity. Hence as potas- 
sium is strongly electro-positive, while oxygen is strongly electro- 
negative, they unite with an energetic affinity. But as potassium 
is more electro-positive than oxygen is electro-negative, in com- 
bining with oxygen it produces an electro-positive oxide. On 
the other hand, oxygen being more electro-negative than sulphur 
is electro-positive, on combining with it forms oxides which are 
electro-negative. Hence an affinity prevails between the oxacids 
of sulphur and the oxybase of potassium, which though less ener- 
getic than those existing between oxygen and sulphur, is founded 
on a similar electro-chemical diversity. 
39. “ Do you find,” says Liebig, “any of the characteristic 
properties of hydrogen acids in chromic acid, boracic acid, silicic 
acid, titanic acid, or their combinations with oxides ?” 
- AO. In the interrogation here quoted, the author of anew, 
vague, and undefined idea of acidity, appeals to that idea in sup- 
port of a nondescript innovation.* Is it not surprising, that it 
should not be perceived, that the enquiry would be more justifi- 
able if reversed, and that all claims to the acid character on the 
part of the hydrurets alluded to, might be denied upon the ground 
that they are deficient of that all-important property of combin- 
ing with oxybases, on which the claims of oxacids to the acid 
character has been considered as dependent? In consequence of 
the deficiency of this attribute, the quadroxide of nitrogen NO’, 
has been treated of by Berzelius, as unworthy of a place in the 
* See this Journal for January, 1486. 
