M.Van Mq7is, 147 



aaote in air and animals. The irreducible silver vvhicli Richtpr 

 procured from an alchemist was silver organized by v.-;iterj and 

 tluis become a new metal, more intense on account >. f its oxida- 

 tion by water instead of oxygen, and without depositing or se- 

 parating hydrogen. Telluiium and arsenic are organized by. 

 water, and converted either ' ito new oxides of metals, or into 

 hinds of acidifiable combu5tii..es, in those iiydrogenated bodies 

 and in the teljurated and arsenicated hydrogens. I ought to 

 have reflected that in the first eK]>erinient I had only obtained 

 mercury^ oxvgen and water: this first experiment was so far 

 particular, that in order to be reduced the mercury became sub- 

 oxidated, which in common cases does not take place ; but it is 

 true that the second oxvgen was here taken up by the hydrogen. 

 The new metal does not appear susceptible of any but one de- 

 gree of oxidation. 



You must doubtless liave perceived that the double acidifiable 

 combustible which with hydrogen forms prussic acid, and which 

 scientifically ought to be called Prussium, (hence prussiated hy- 

 drogen gas, prussiate, prussure, &c.) is v/ith respect to azote, 

 what the alcohol of Lampadius fand which we might also with- 

 out much impropriety call lampadium, and hence lampadiated 

 hydrogen gas, lampadotes, lampadures, &;c. not tos{iy suiphuret- 

 and azoturet of carbon, which would be false,) is with respect to 

 .sulphur. The two compounds have the same physical and che- 

 mical properties : they ire very gasifiable, colourless, and dia^ 

 jjhanous ; dry oxvgen cannot resolve them into the acids of 

 their elements, and without water we could not decompose them. 

 We see, in short, that one of the combustibles acts with respect 

 to the other, in the room of water ; so that this last is not only 

 reduced, but subtracted in the portion of hydrogen which 

 composes its oxvgen into water. If therefore one of the com* . 

 pounds is the alcohol of sulphur, the other is alcohol of azote; . 

 and in both, in their solution by hydrogen, the carbon goes for 

 the first proportion of this princi[)le; and the one ought already 

 to bfe considered as hydrogenated culphur, and the other as 

 azote hydrogenated, but by carbon instead of hydrogen. 



You must know that iodine receiver reduced metals in ex^ 

 change for its oxygen, and forms, like the dry fluoric and mu- 

 riatic acid*;, condjustiblcs saliftiihie bv oxygenation r tor instance, 

 by the oxidation of their metals. The hydrogen does not dis^ 

 place the metal from them, but composes the metallo-iode into 

 iodure of reduced metal, by producing actually acidiftable com- 

 bustible from the iodic acid. 



The oxygenated iodine which Sir Humphry Davy obtained by 

 trealirii; iodine wilh cx^genar(.•d cidorine, is np; ec-iodine, but 



