264 On Chemical Nomenclature. 
neutral, it has almost the same acidity of taste as the hydrofluoric acid 
employed. The new base does not destroy then the acid reaction. 
Let us make a further addition of sulphuric acid to the sulphate 
of potash. .A salt equally acid will result, in which the sulphate of 
of potash acts the same basic part towards the sulpburic acid, as the 
fluoride of potassium towards the hydrofluoric acid. Should it be 
desired to extend the comparison further, it will be found that for 
each less electro-positive fluoride, susceptible of combination with the 
potassic fluoride, there will be, with but very few exceptions, a cor- 
responding sulphate, susceptible of combination with the sulphate of 
. The analogy is then complete, it exists not only in the per- 
fect neutrality of the two potassic salts, in their saline taste, but also 
in their manner of forming combinations with other bodies ; notwith- 
standing one of them, the sulphate, contains one element more than 
the other. If, instead of ‘potash, potassium were employed to sat- 
urate our two acids, the analogy of the operation in both cases, 
would be still more complete. The same quantity of metal would 
displace equal volumes of hydrogen. When the visible results of 
our experiments are so perfectly analogous, it is to be presumed that 
the invisible process which we do not see, may also be perfectly 
and that if facts exactly alike are explained differently, 
there must be a defect in the explanation. If, for instance, the true 
electro-chemical composition of the sulphate of potash should not be 
KO+S0O:, as is generally supposed, but K-+SO*,* and it appears’ 
very natural that atoms, so eminently electro-negative as sulphur and 
oxygen, should be associated, we have, in the salt in question, potas- 
sium combined with a compound body, which, like cyanogen in 
K+C? N,} imitates simple halogen bodies, and gives a salt with 
potassium and other metals. The hydrated oxacids, agreeably to 
this view, would be then hydracids of a compound halogen body, 
which metals. may displace hydrogen, as in the hydracids of 
simple halogen bodies. Thus we know that SO%, that is to say, 
anhydrous sulphuric acid, is a body whose properties, as respects 
acidity, differ from those which we should expect in the active prin- 
eple of hydrous sulphuric acid. 
* In the nig eae symbols, K stands for kalium, or potassium, S for sulphur, 
: 0 for oxyge' d O83 for three atoms of oxygen, O4 for four atoms of oxygen- 
+ That st is x say: if the salt called sulphate of potash, be considered as compound 
of potassium, and a quadroxide of sulphur, instead of being viewed asa protoxide 
of potassium, or potash, and tritoxide of sulphur, or sulphuric acid. This is the 
formula for eyanide of potassium, consisting of potassium, K, and cyanogen, oF 
wo and one of nitrogen, C2 N. 
