S50 Experiments on a solid Compound 



be present ; but with the vapour of water they fornl a solid cry- 

 stalline hydrate. 



Reasoning from analogy, it is probable that a compound of 

 oxygen may be formed, containing less oxygen than the new 

 compound. I have made many experiments with the hope of 

 discovering a body of this kind ; but without anv decided suc- 

 cess. When the solution of the new compound is made to act 

 on the double compound of iodine and the alkaline metals, 

 iodine is produced which during its sublimation yields no 

 gaseous product. Iodine heated in a solution of the new com- 

 pound slightly colours it, hut this appears to be merely in con- 

 sequence of its combining with the water ; and the iodine rises 

 in vapour with the water without decomposing the compound. 

 In some experiments on the action of euchlorine on iodine, in 

 which the iodine was in great excess, the solid substance formed 

 had a chocolate tint; but this may possibly have depended upon 

 a small quantity of free iodine, and when dissolved in water, it 

 afforded by the evaporation of the water, the white compound 

 only. 



I detailed in my last paper on iodine, some unsuccessful at- 

 tempts to procure a compound of oxygen and iodine from the 

 chlorionic acid, the substance produced by the agency of the com- 

 bination of iodine and chlorine in water, on the idea that water 

 was decomposed in this experiment. I have made some further 

 researches, on the supposition that it might contain a compound 

 of iodine containing less oxygen than this new substance ; but 

 without any success ; neither by distillation at very low tempera- 

 tures, nor by the action of small (|uan titles of oxide of silver, nor bv 

 any other means, have I been able to separate any compound of 

 oxygen from it : and when it forms triple compounds, the oxj-- 

 iodes, by ts action upon alkalies, or elarths, or metallic solutions, 

 it appears that the oxygen of the alkalies or earths is only newly 

 combined at the moment of its operation upon them, an effect 

 assisted by the attraction of the bases of the earths for chlorine. 

 The conclusion which I formed, that the chlorionic acid is a 

 simple combination of the chlorionic sublimate in water, is still 

 further proved by the circumstances of the action of muriatic 

 acid on the new solid compound of oxygen and iodine*. — 

 Page 349. 



As I have called the compounds of oxygen, iodine, and bases, 



* The chlorionic acid oflFers an easy method of procuring pure baryta. 

 By dropping a solution of it into solution of muriate of barium, as I have 

 shown in my last prper on iodine, a precipitate of oxyiode of barium is 

 produced, which wnen decomposed by a strong heat yields pure baryta, 

 the attraction of oxygen for barium being, as I have stated, stronger at this 

 temperature than that of iodine. 



oxyiodeSf 



