234 Scientific Labors and Character of 
The controversy was conducted with such consummate skill, that 
‘ each rejoinder seemed conclusive in favor of the writer; and the 
reader could hardly help saying as the country justice did, to each of 
the advocates in succession, “ You’ve got your case.” For example, 
when Davy brings forward the fact, that charcoal ignited to white- 
ness and presented to chlorine under the most favorable circumstan- 
ces, abstracts no oxygen from-it, we feel compelled to believe, that 
ithas none. Nor does it satisfy us to say, as his antagonist did, that 
this fact makes equally against his own hypothesis; since, if chlorine 
be a supporter of combustion analogous to oxygen, as Davy supposed, 
it ought to enter into combination with the carbon under these circum- 
stances.* Murray here forgot, that it is not necessary for bodies to 
agree an all respects in order to be arranged in the same class;—that 
if they did thys agree, they would not be analogous in their charac- 
ters but adentical. Gold undoubtedly belongs to the same class.of 
bodies with lead; but in their affinities for oxygen, these two bodies 
differ widely. Ammonia belongs to the same class of bodies with 
potash; but in their composition, they differ as much as possible, 
But though we do not attach any weight to this reply urged by Dr. 
Murray, and repeated by his son,+ yet when he urges the argument 
that the chlorine does not give up its oxygen to the carbon, because 
the muriatic acid which would be left, cannot exist without water, We 
are confounded, if not convinced ; for, to say that muriatic acid can 
exist without water, was assuming one of the principal points at issues 
On the other hand, when Murray converts earbonic oxide into 
carbonic acid by mixing it with chlorine,t we feel it impossible any 
longer to resist the evidence that chlorine contains oxygen ; but in the 
eply of his antagonist, we are shewn that this change might take 
place in consequence, not of the transfer of oxygen from the chlorine 
to the carbonic oxide, but by the abstraction of carbon from the lat- 
ter, forming with chlorine and hydrogen (for the presence of this ele- 
SWS Saat aa mene nae lone ARs 
from the want of action of white hot charcoal upon chlorine, has been often repeated, 
and by chemists of eminence ; but the objection appears to us to be unfair, beeause 
sti : attraction for ignited carbon is a known property of oxygen; and ifa body 
faet furnishes a strong presumption, that the hody. contains no oxygen 5 but ts 
fact does not prove that the body in question is not a supporter of combustion. It 
may still be entitled to that character on account of its burning sulpbur, phosphorus 
: ant of affinity for charcoal marks a specific difference i 
__ -¥in the recent edition of Murray’s Eloments. + Nith. Journal, vol: 28. 
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