yields, Alkalis, and their Compounds. 187 



much higher proportion of oxygen, being composed of 100 of 

 oxvimiriatic acid with SO; this is exactly 4 multiples, and gives 

 therefore tl^.e series of 3, 4, 7. Hyper- oxymuriatic or chloric 

 acid is composed of 100 of oxymuriatic acid with 1 1 1 of oxygen, 

 whicli is another multiple, or 8. It cannot, however, exist in- 

 sulated, as Gay-Lussac states, without the presence of water ; 

 that is, it is a'ternarv compound, containing probably an addi- 

 tional multiple of oxygen, and thus affording the series of 3, 4, 

 7, 9. If an error of experiment were supposed with regard to 

 the second, or euchlorine, so as to have deviated from the mul- 

 tiple 5, this would afford a series somewhat regular. But even 

 without assuming this, it is of importance to find in all these, that 

 the proportions are simple multiples of a first quantity. And as 

 the relations of carbon to oxygen and hydrogen, in the composi- 

 tion of the vegetable acids, show the numerous definite propor- 

 tions in simple multiples in which they combine, so combinations 

 not more numerous may supply the intermediate multiples in the 

 muriatic com])ounds. 



There is a peculiarity in the nmriatic compared with the sul- 

 phuric and nitric comf.ounds. In the latter, there does not exist 

 any binary compound of the radical vvith oxygen, in which the pro- 

 portion of the one to tb.e other is the same as the proportion in 

 vt-hich they exist in the ternary compound which they form witli 

 hydrogen. There is therefore no oxy-^ulphuric or oxynitric acid. 

 Ill hydroniuriatic and oxymuriatic acids, the proportion of oxygen 

 to the radical is the same, and there is only in the former an addi- 

 tion of hydrogen. Hence the apparent peculiarity of oxymuriatic 

 acid having an excess of oxygen, and the circumstance, that by 

 an addition of hvdrogen it is converted into muriatic acid. This, 

 however, is not absolutely peculiar to it, and presents therefore 

 no anomaly. The same thing holds in the relation of carbonic 

 and oxalic acids. In both, the same proportion of oxygen to 

 carbon exists ; the oxalic acid only containing, like the muriatic 

 acid, an addition of hydrogen. Did hydrogen act with the same 

 facility on carbonic acid that it does on oxymuriatic acid, it would 

 convert it into oxalic acid in the same manner that it converts 

 the other into muriatic acid. And were the attraction of car- 

 bon to metals and inflammables more powerful than it is, so as 

 to bring it into ternary combination with them with oxygen, or 

 its affinity to hydrogenequally strong with that of the radical ot 

 muriatic acid, its action, in apparently imparting oxygen, would 

 probably be equally energetic as that of oxymuriatic acid. 



The constitution of the alkalis and earths, which I have consi- 

 dered as ternary compounds of radicals with oxygen and hydro- 

 gen, 



