56 Notices respecting New Books. 



substances united with nitrogen. Some of the mineral acids are de- 

 composable by charcoal heated to redness. Some of the vegetable 

 acids are also decomposed and reduced into water and carbonic acid, 

 by leaving them in an exposed situation to the action of their own 

 principles: others may be changed into different acids, by imparting 

 or abstracting a portion of oxygen. The animal acids are of all others 

 the most liable to decomposition. In an elevated temperature, the 

 carbon and oxygen unite to form carbonic acid, and the hydrogen 



and nitrogen to produce volatile alkali there are substances 



possessing acid properties which contain no oxygen. Until lately 

 there were only three acids whose composition was unknown ; name- 

 ly, the muriatic, the fluoric, and the boracic ; these, however, have 

 yielded to the power of Voltaic electricity, and their bases have been 

 separated." 



"The acids were formerly divided into three classes 5 namely, the 

 mineral, the vegetable, and the animal acid ; but the more useful and 

 scientific way of dividing them is into two classes. 



" ] . The undecomposable, and those which are formed with two 

 principles, are comprised in the first class ; while those acids which 

 are formed with more than two principles, compose the second. 

 Those of the first class, which are formed with two principles only, 

 are composed of oxygen and some other substance which is called 

 their radical. The acids of the second class are composed chiefly of 

 oxygen, hydrogen and carbon 5 though some of them contain a por- 

 tion of nitrogen. 



" The cicid^ of the first class are — The sulphuric and sulphurous 

 acids ; the muriatic and oxygenized muriatic acids ; the nitric, the 

 carbonic, the phosphoric, and phosphorous ; the fluoric, the boracic, 

 arsenic, the tungstic, molybdic, and the chromic acids, 



" The acids of the second class are — The acetic, the oxalic, the tar- 

 taric, the citric, the malic, the lactic, the gallic, the mucous, the ben- 

 zoic, the succinic, the camphoric, the suberic, the lactic, the prussic, 

 the sebacic, the uric, the amniotic and the fluoboric acids." This 

 long quotation is, with a slight alteration or two, presently to be no- 

 ticed, nearly all copied from pages 103, 104 and 105 of Parkes. — The 

 changes which Mr. Forsyth has made in his original, are first, the sub- 

 stitution of oxygen for this important agent ; 2ndly, the addition of 

 oxygenized muriatic acid after muriatic acid, by which he has made a 

 complication of blunders; 3dly, tlie omission of arsenious acid, which 

 he ought to have retained, mentioning as he does the phosphorous as 

 well as the phosphoric; 4thly, the omission of molybdous and telluric 

 acids; 5thly and lastly, by mistaking the laccic acid for the lactic, he 

 has twice included this latter acid in his second class. 



Under the head of alkalies, the same spoliation has been carried on ; 

 we shall not so minutely examine the extent of the pilferings or of 

 the blunders which have been made in copying. Mr, Parkes says 

 the alkalies render the oils miscible with water. — Mr. Forsyth has 

 converted this word into durable ; and in many places throughout 

 Mr. Forsyth's book, similar transformations are made. Thus in page 

 101, boracie acid is stated to be in the form of thin salts: we presume 



