100 On the Chemical Constitution of Acids, Alkalis, &c. 



that constituting carbonic oxide. The hydrogen conforms to 

 none of the four proportions, but is the precise mean between the 

 first and second. 



In saccho-hictic acid the relation of the ox-ygen to the carbon 

 is not that of any of the definite proportions, but is nighest to the 

 third. The hydrogen is that which constitutes supercarburetted 

 hydrogen. 



The analysis of benzoic acid is evidently very doubtful, owing 

 to the difficulties which attend it from its vofatilitv. It is the 

 only one in which the proportion of oxygen to carbon is less even 

 than the lowest of the definite proportions of these elements. 

 The proportion of hydrogen is almost exactly that of the first 

 proportion. 



If the definite proportions of oxygen and hydrogen to carbon 

 be assumed to be more numerous than 4, but still observing the 

 law of simple multiples, all these results may be easily brought 

 under the law. The relations suggested by these researches, and 

 particularly those which prove that proportions of carbon both 

 to oxygen and to hydrogen exist inferior to the lowest known 

 proportions of these elements, afford much support to the con- 

 clusion, that their definite combinations are more numerous than 

 the few that have been admitted, either on ''he doctrine of equiva- 

 lents, or on the atomic hypothesis. And on the latter, the com- 

 position of organic compounds may be accounted for with this 

 conclusion, so as to preserve what constitutes its chief excellence, 

 — the principle that one body in a combination is always in the 

 relation of one atom, and which is confessedly incapable of being 

 maintained, with the assumption merely of the few definite pro- 

 portions of the elements that have hitherto been assigned. 



The view indeed that the vegetable acids are compounds of a 

 simple radical (carbon) acidified by oxygen and hydrogen, and the 

 law existing in this and other ternary combinations, that two of 

 the elements ol)serve the requisite relations in proportion to the 

 third as a base, mav probably be extended to all the vegetable, 

 and perhaps even to the more complicated animal products ; and, 

 with the admission of a more extensive series of definite propor- 

 tions in the primary elements, may remove the necessity of the 

 law advanced by Berzelius, and apparently now admitted by the 

 supporters of the atomic system, — that while in inorganic bodies 

 one of the constituents is always in the state of a single atom, 

 in organic bodies it is not so, but very often the reverse. If this 

 law be excluded, and the reverse established, it will assimilate the 

 constitution of organic to that of inorganic compounds, and must 

 contribute greatly, independent of uniformity and simplicity, to 

 render that of the former, at present so involved in obscurity and 

 discordance, more precise. 



[To be continued.] 



