Muriatic Acid and Chlorine. 103 
eal analogy in this supposition. The quantity will be represented 
by the fraction sews 
A5:45° 
If chlorine, however, be a simple body, which forms with hy- 
drogen muriatic acid gas, then sal ammoniac is rightly named 
Hydrochlorate of Ammonia. And since ammonia itself results 
from three volumes of hydrogen and one of azote, condensed 
into two volumes, that saline body can contain neither water, 
nor its indispensable element oxygen. 
On the other hand, if chlorine be oxymuriatic acid, then the 
fourth part of water existing in the resulting muriatic acid gas 
must necessarily enter into the sal ammoniac as an essential 
constituent ; for the whole ponderable matter of that gas, as 
well as of the ammonia, passes into the salt. This water being 
as indispensable an ingredient of sal ammoniac as it is of oil of 
vitriol; heat alone can no more separate it from the former, 
than it can from the latter compound. 
Moreover, if we decompose sal ammoniae by the agency of 
any body containing oxygen, an evident source of fallacy exists 
relative to the watery product, which may be referred by the 
supporters of the chloridic theory, not to the salt itself, but to 
the hydrogen of the hydrochloric acid, united with the oxygen 
of the decomposing substance. This ambiguous interpretation 
is experimentally illustrated in my paper on the Ammoniacal 
Salts. 
If, however, we shall decompose that equivocal salt, by means 
of a substance which certainly contaius no oxygen; and if we 
still obtain water in nearly the above proportions; then this re- 
sult is no longer equivocal, nor will it admit of two interpreta- 
tions. We must thenceforth be compelled to recognise in mu- 
Tiatic acid gas, as in the other acid vapours, WATER as an ingre- 
dient essential to its constitution; and to acknowledge that 
chlorine consists of a base united to oxygen, or is in fact oxy- 
genated muriatic acid, as Lavoisier and Berthollet taught, and 
as the whole chemical world believed, till their faith was lately 
shaken or subverted by the predominating genius of Sir Hum- 
phry Davy. 
With the view of deciding the above important controversy, 
I performed the following experiments : 
Of sal ammoniac, kept for some time in a platina capsule at 
a subliming heat, to remove every particle of adhering moisture, 
a known quantity was put into a glass tube, and made to slide 
down to the one end, which had been hermetically sealed. Over 
it a given weight of bright metallic laminz, cut into slender seg- 
ments, was slightly pressed. The salt occupied in general about 
one inch of the tube; the laminz four or five inches. Silver, 
G4 copper, 
being nearly one-fourth, 
