106 Experiments on Muriatic Acid and Chlorine. 
moniac being decomposed into its ultimate gases, will consist of 
two measures of those constituting the alkali + one measure of 
the muriatic. Hence 100 volumes should contain 33+ of this 
acid gas; but they actually contained only about 5. Therefore 
about 2S measures, which form the difference, were condensed 
with the iron. Secondly, the iron turnings had increased in 
weight; they deliquesced speedily on exposure to the atmo- 
sphere; and, digested in water, they yielded an acerb-tasted so- 
lution of muriate of iron, giving with prussiate of potash a co- 
pious blue precipitate. 
The quantity of muriate produced in the experiment will de- 
pend on the proportion of turnings which have been but mo- 
derately heated ; for the ammonia, in its passage over the strongly 
ignited iron, may be conceived to separate the oxygen, and thus 
prevent the formation of muriate. 
Water impregnated with muriatic acid equal in weight to 
nearly one-sixth of the sal ammoniac decomposed, is uniformly 
obtained by the above process. Scarcely a particle of ammonia 
seems to escape entire decomposition. The evolved muriatic 
acid, amounting to ;%, of the whole gaseous products, must 
carry off with it a portion of its constituent water. Hence we 
ought to find a little less water here condensed, than, by my ex- 
periments on the ammoniacal salts above referred to, sal am- 
moniac, viewed as a muriate, is shown to contain. 
It seems evidently to follow, from this experimental detail, 
that chlorine is oxygenated muriatic acid. Since dry sal am- 
moniac consists of ammonia and muriatic acid gases, both hy- 
grometrically dry; and since water is obtained in its decompo- 
sition by pure metals; this water must have existed in the 
gaseous acid; for all experiments concur in proving ammonia 
itself to contain nothing but azote and hydrogen. And, finally, 
sinee muriatic acid gas is a compound of chlorine and hydro- 
gen, the water derived from the resulting muriatic acid, demon- 
strates the presence of oxygen in the chlorine, or, in other 
words, that it is really oxymuriatic acid *, 
All the experimental phenomena hitherto adduced in the 
chloridic controversy, were susceptible of explanation on both 
the old and new doctrine. Thus, the hydrogen which remains 
after tin is subjected at a high temperature to muriatic acid gas, 
could be regarded, with Davy, as resulting from a metallic ana- 
* If the Chloridic theory be still retained, then the production of water 
in the above circumstances can be ascribed only to the decomposition of 
azote into oxygen and hydrogen, as has been already indicated in my paper 
on the Ammoniacal Salts. It is possible that this alternative may eventually 
be found the true one; yet, in the present state of our knowledge, such an 
inference would be illogical. 
lysis 
