356 Dr.Kane on the Action of Hydrochloric Acid on Sulphates. 
while the latter with the sulphuric acid constitutes a sulphate 
ofa chloride. The general nature of its properties inclines 
me to believe the former to be the true idea, that the chloride 
of hydrogen exists as such in the brown powder, and that 
chloride of copper is only formed when the decomposition is 
effected with the presence of much water. 
The singular results of the reaction just described render- 
ing an examination of the influence of muriatic acid on the 
sulphates in general highly interesting, experiments were in- 
stituted, of which the results shall be very briefly stated. — 
Dry muriatic acid was passed over sulphates in the appa- 
ratus before described. With the sulphates of potash, soda, 
zinc, magnesia, iron, alumina, and lead, no action was ob- 
served ; these salts did not change in weight or in appearance. 
On the other hand, the sulphates of nickel and of quicksilver 
absorb muriatic acid very gradually, with the evolution of 
heat, the absorption ceasing when half an atom has been 
taken up. These compounds lose the gas they had absorbed, 
by exposure to the air during some time, and immediately on 
being heated. If they be put into water, the sulphate is de- 
posited pure, the muriatic acid remaining in the water. 
Sulphate of potash dissolves in liquid muriatic acid with 
some evolution of heat; and if by means of heat two atoms of 
sulphate of potash be dissolved in a quantity of liquid con- 
taining an atom of real muriatic acid, there separate on cooling 
finely formed crystals (rhomboidal plates) of bisulphate of 
potash, with opake cubes of chloride of potassium. A great 
number of analyses of the crystals obtained by such reaction 
was made to determine whether the sulphate of chlorkalium 
corresponding with the chromate had any existence, but no 
trace of its being formed could be obtained. Bisulphate of 
potash crystallizes from its solution in liquid muriatic acid 
unaltered. Sulphate of ammonia similarly treated gives pre- 
cisely similar results. 
It has been long known that Glauber’s salt treated with 
muriatic acid constitutes a powerful freezing mixture, the 
theory of which is at once explained by the results of the expe- 
riment. When sulphate of soda is dissolved in liquid muriatic 
acid there are formed bisulphate of soda and chloride of so- 
dium, and as the former salt crystallizes only with four atoms 
of water, the remaining quantity of the water of crystallization 
of the Glauber’s salt is disengaged, to the amount of sixteen 
atoms: thus, 2 {(S+Na)10 H}+(Cl+H) = 
{(2 S+Na) +4 H)} +(Cl+ Na) +17 H. 
