Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 465 



confusion :" although it now appears thev also were imaginary ; and 

 we are plainly told (p. 250) that some of the authors quoted would 

 nave written them differently. 



His reply to my statement that 'Rose and Johnstone would doubt- 

 less place 2 before the symbol for soda/ is, " Very likely ; but then they 



would have written P, while I have given P to express an acid ' in 

 which many chemists, chiefly in this country, apprehend the phos- 

 phorus to enter as a single atom ;* and therefore only an atom of 

 soda to form phosphate of soda." 



But if the phosphorus enters into P only as a single atom, the 

 oxygen enters as 5 atoms (.v.): whilst the equivalent of phosphoric 

 acid for one atom of soda contains but 2| atoms of oxygen, as Mr. 

 Phillips well knows. A quantity, therefore, of phosphoric acid, con- 

 taining 5 atoms of oxygen, will require 2 atoms of soda whether the 



symbol be written P, or P. 



The "2 before soda" having, however, been omitted* below, in the 

 symbol given as Johnstone's, we are told (p. 250), " It is curious that 

 Johnstone's symbol is the same when mutilated by me, as when cor- 

 rected by Mr. Prideaux ; and still more curious, that with my view it 

 was correctly employed, while with the no-mending of Mr. Prideaux it is 

 wrong." And most curious of all, that it changed from right to wrong, 

 yet remaining the same as before. 



It is next stated that I, "a professed admirer," &c, "in attempt- 

 ing to correct three symbols, have committed four errors." Two of 



these relate to the P in Rose and Johnstone's symbols, which Mr. 

 Phillips now says they would write, 



Rose 2 Na O + P O 5 + 24 H O ; 



Johnstone P + 2 S o + 24 H. 



Not possessing any table ~by either of these chemists, it was from 

 "the specimen" I was led to conclude that they held phosphoric acid 

 to consist of 1 atom phosphorus and 5 oxygen ; and my authority 

 seems now to have been imaginary. But it is on their opinions of 

 the atomic constitution of the acid, not of the quantity of soda with 

 which it combines, that will depend their mode of expressing that 



ingredient. Graham writes Na- P (not P), nnd for aught that yet ap- 

 pears, Johnstone and Rose may do the same. 



The other two errors charged to my account appear to be 

 in Dr. Turner's formula which Mr. Phillips will maintain thus : 



S + P + 2\ O + 12| Aq j a promise for which every professed 

 admirer of chemical symbols must thank him, as the London Pro- 

 fessor will certainly disown it, and it will hardly find a maintenance 

 elsewhere. It is true, there can be no question of authorship in the 

 case; and it will furnish a standing proof, that "the privilege of 



I supposed, at the time, by the printer; hut whether by him or myself, 

 I thought the correction too obvious to require notice 



Third Series. Vol. 1. No. 24. June 1834. 3 



