{74 On definite Proportions. 
oxymuriatic acid, in which, according to the computations 
in section XX, there were 47°67 of oxvgen; and this is 
hearly half of the oxygen contained in the sulphurous acid. 
Bucholz and Gehlen endeavoured to saturate the sul- 
phureted muriatic acid with sulphur, and employed 1114 
parts of oxymuriatic acid to 100 of sulphur. This is about 
half as much acid as Berthollet had made to unite with the 
sulphur, and we here see a combination of sulphur with only 
half as much oxygen as it took up in Berthollet’s experi- 
ment. If we now suppose that a slight inaccuraey in find- 
ing the point of saturation or the weight had occurred in 
these experiments, and that in the one 100 parts of sulphur 
had taken up 214 of oxymuriatic acid, instead of 204, in 
the other 107, instead of 111; we shall here have two 
combinations, the Jast of which is a muriate of the prot- 
oxide of sulphur, the first a muriate of the oxide, in which 
the sulphur is united to twice as much oxygen and acid as 
im the former, in the same manner as has been shown to 
happen in the metallic salts. This sort of combination 
resembles in this case a fully saturated compound of the 
arsenious acid, or of the oxide of chromium, with the mu- 
riatic acid: it is by no means neutral, as a salt, but its 
composition is analogous to that of a salt. If this view 
of the subject is correct, the lowest degree of oxidation of 
the sulphur, as in Bucholz’s experiment, is a union of 100 
parts of sulphur with 25 of oxygen; and the following de- 
grees of oxidation are multiples by 2, 4, and 6, passing: 
over the odd numbers 3 and 5. I here beg leave expressly 
to remark, that I wish the results of this mode of reasoning 
to be considered merely as grounds for future investigation : 
and I imagine that such proportions as can only exist in 
triple or multiple compounds, will not be found the least 
Important. 
Perhaps it is on account of the existence of such com- 
binations, that we find multiples by 145 so that these may 
always suppose a lower degree of oxidation, with respect to 
which they are multiples by 6 or 12: and thus it may here- 
after be demonstrated, that these gradations always ascend 
by the even numbers, 2, 4,6, 8, and perhaps more. If we 
take a vegetable body, for example, we find in it carbon, 
hydrogen, and oxygen, but the latter in so small a propor- 
tion, that it seldom corresponds to the lowest known de- 
gree of oxidation of either of the two former; they must 
consequently be capable of still lower degrees of oxidation. 
This gives us, for example, reason to inquire if the gaseous 
oxide of carbon and carbonic acid are not, with respect to 
oxidation, 
