Dr. Hare on the Chemical Nomenclature of Berzelius. 257 
than between the nitric acid and the fluoride of hydrogen? 
Under this aspect can it be reasonable to class together the nitrate 
of lime and fluor spar as simple salts, and yet exclude the sul- 
phides from the same class? Are not the sulphides more analo- 
gous to the chlorides and fluorides than the nitrates, in the very 
trait to which you have referred? I allude to the evolution from 
either by reaction with sulphuric acid of a like base and of one 
of the acids improperly called hydracids. 
It is considered as objectionable that chloride of sodium, a 
neutral salt “‘ par excellence,” should be deemed a base. But I 
would ask, whence originated the nominal neutrality of this 
chloride; did it not spring from the old abandoned notion of its 
consisting of muriatic acid and oxide of sodium? ‘That it isa 
salt par excellence, I admit, but deny that it is a neutral salt 
agreeably to the idea associated with the term neutral as applied 
to the sulphates of potash and the sulphate of soda, in contradis- 
tinction to the acid bisulphates of these bases. That it is neu- 
tral or inert, as respects its reagency with vegetable colors, ought 
not, as Lconceive, any more to be an objection to its claims to the 
basic character, than the like inertness is an objection to the basic 
pretensions of the oxides of the metals proper, among which very 
few, if any, have any alkaline reaction. This is more properly 
a test of alkalinity than of basidity. 
Since water, alumina, and some other oxides, are considered as 
capable severally of acting as an acid in some compounds and as 
a base in others, wherefore may not the same substance have the 
attributes of a salt in one case, and yet in others act as a base? 
Which is the most remote from the character of a base, is it the 
salt or the acid? 
Iam obliged to you for the information given at the close of 
your letter. I do not know whether you have ever met with the 
account given in the Bulletin of the proceedings of the American 
Philosophical Society, of my success in fusing pure rhodium 
and iridium, by the hydro-oxygen blowpipe. 
[have been for some time endeavoring to perfect some new 
methods of analyzing organic substances by burning them in 
oxygen gas. 
With the highest esteem, I am yours sincerely, 
LoperT Hare. 
