178 On Fulminating Silver. 
azote sub-hydrogenating itself into an acid which produces the 
second ; and it may be presumed that the two actions take place 
simultaneously, or depend upon each other. 
Gold in very minute division is dissolved in chlorine by the 
help of heat, and also when nitro-muriate of gold is partly de- 
composed by heat, then treated with muriatic acid, and evapo- 
rated to dryness. It is a brown substance, very deliquescent, 
which easily decomposes the water of the atmosphere, forming 
muriate of gold. I have not as yet examined it with precision.. 
On Silver. [By the same.] 
Ir will not easily be believed, as Brugnatelli observes, that 
silver, which is a metal reducible per se, may be oxidized in the 
air, and at a heat which its oxide scarcely requires in or- 
der to be reduced. There must, therefore, be some other 
cause than oxidation which renders silver vitrifiable ; and this 
cause will deserve examination. A very intense heat, or the 
electric fluid,—do they organize a portion of the oxygen of the 
primitive matter which forms the basis of the silver, in such a 
way as to originate an oxide different from the ordinary oxide 
of that metal? This is a difficult question, Such an effect, by 
displacing hydrogen with the oxygen of the primitive matter, 
will compose a metal more hydrogenated, and which will be 
izreducible in the fire; and the oxidation will take place not by 
the oxygen of the air, ‘but by that which is proper to the primi- 
tive matter, 
We must inquire if the oxide of silver obtained by fire pos~ 
sesses other qualities than the oxide of the same metal obtained 
by the acids; aud in the contrary case, we must ascertain if the 
reagents.employed in this examination do not separate the super- 
combined hydrogen, proportioning at the same time the oxygen 
of the caloric to the degree of the new hydrogenation; or if, by 
oxidating the hydrogen of the oxide at the ordinary degree, 
they do not separate some of it from the water—two circum- 
stances which will bring silver back to its first constitution. 
We know already that the metals are oxidated by the electric 
fluid, as well in vacuo as in contact with the air. The ex- 
periments relative to the oxidation of silver by calorie alone 
~must be undertaken on a very large scale in close vessels, on ac- 
eount of the volatility of the metal, and in vacuo: we must 
particularly ascertain if the metal, in returning to its ee 
“state, undergoes a loss of weight. 
If the fact of the mineral organization of the primitive matter 
of a metal by the electric fluid, or by a red heat, is confirmed ; 
we may explain how in aérolites the metals may be ar tificially 
composed, 
