212 On Metallic Sulphurets. 



therefore beg Berthollct to make himself for a moTnfent 

 author of the doctrine which he combats, and ask him 

 what he would think of a chemist, wlio, for the good of 

 the contrary hypothesis, should employ himself in arran- 

 ging on one side all the considerations which he could de- 

 duce from the metal which ought to throw light on the 

 nature of livers of antimony, to arrange then, exclusively, 

 the latter, on the sulphur they contain ? Why, would he 

 say, are von silent in regard to that metal which lies close 

 to sulphur, and which can so well remove whatever is diffi- 

 cult to be conceived in the solution of the latter by an 

 oxide? Each of us then resuming the hypothesis he de- 

 fends, I will answer the objection of Berlhollet, by begging 

 him not to forget, that if in the crocus there is sulphur in 

 all doses, it is to saturate this sulphur that there is metal 

 also found in all doses. This is what has obliged me not 

 to range in the same line the sulphurated oxides of anti- 

 mony, if any remain, with oxides holding in solution sul- 

 phuret, which will hereafter supply their place. 



In regard to the nature of these combinations, the aspect 

 under which I have presented them is far from furnishing 

 limits ta my apothegm, to deduce from it arguments 

 against the kw of proportions. He aught to have deter- 

 mined, that oxide of antimony may attain the term of its 

 saturation by dissolving sulphuret, and thus to have disco- 

 vered, that he cannot thence adduce an appearance and 

 characters which warrant the constancy of this saturation, as 

 generally happens to allthecombinationswhich range them- 

 selves under the law of proportions. If the case with an 

 oxide, in the power it has of dissolving, were the same as 

 that of an acid which retains its liquidity, nothing would 

 be easier than to resolve the question, and I should have 

 employed myself on it. But when an oxide of antimony, 

 to which is added a little sulphuret, has assumed the colour 

 and transparency we.require in it, we stop it there, without 

 paying attention to the weight and measure, because it is 

 in this state thatwe wish to have it. This is glass of antimony; 

 a new dose of sulphuret makes it crocus ; a greater makes it 

 hepar, and so on ; that is to say, the old chemists, without 

 paying regard to a theory, the knowlediie of which was re-* 

 served for posterity, broke down the solution of sulphuret in 

 its oxide, and extracted i'rom the crucible, as one may say, 

 each of the fractions to (ill the repositories of medicine with 

 their livers, their mogisteries, their rubies, and their diapho- 

 retics,^ from Basil Valentine down to Lemery. Such, in 

 mv opinion, is the whole history of antimony. To apoand 



of 



