Dr. Hare on the Salt Radical Theory. 385 
any known compounds which are preéminently entitled to be 
designated as salts, would it not seem that chloride of sodium 
and those of the haloid compounds which are its congeners in 
properties and composition belong to that class? I have how- 
ever objected to extending the designation to such haloid com- 
pounds as utterly differ from chloride of sodium in properties, 
however analogous in composition ; such for instance, as the fu- 
ming liquor of Libavius, the butyraceous chlorides, plumbum cor- 
neum, luna cornea, fluoride of calcium, and the gaseous haloid 
hydrurets, treated as hydracids by Liebig. It has appeared to me 
that a salt properly means a body having some analogy in prop- 
erties with common salt, the original type of the genus. I have 
urged that there were oxides, in this respect, more entitled to be 
considered as salts than some of the compounds formed by the 
salt-producing class of Berzelius. But according to the definition 
above quoted, common salt, chloride of sodium, is a salt only be- 
cause it contains the same number of equivalents of chlorine that 
sodium does of oxygen; and the haloid congeners of common 
salt, are salts only because their metals unite with oxygen, in the 
proportion in which their halogen ingredient enters into their 
composition. Were oxides viewed as salts by Liebig, there might 
_ be some consistency in considering other bodies as salts so far as 
they might have an analogous composition, but in the actual 
state of the case the definition seems to be unjustifiable. Under 
this definition how are the sulphides, selenides, tellurides, phosphu- 
rets and carburets, to be excluded from the class of salts when 
consisting of a metal, united with either sulphur, selenium, tellu- 
rium, carbon, or phosphorus, in the same proportion as oxygen 1s 
capable of combining with the same metal ? 
45. Liebig refers to the electrolytic experiments of Daniell for 
support, but those were sufficiently shown to be nugatory, in an 
essay published in the American J ournal of Science and Arts, 
vol. xlv, for 1843. See also, L. E. Phil. Mag. vol. xxiii, p. 203. 
46. It would indeed be miraculous, if all the seven compound 
radicals existing in the oxacids of sulphur, according to the table 
~ above alluded to, should prove to be anions, on subjecting their 
compounds to electrolysis. 
AT. There is something in the reaction of muriatic acid with 
alumine and likewise magnesia, and of water with chloride of 
aluminium, through which an appeal is made in favor of the ex- 
