43 Improvements in Physical Science - (Jan. 
Phosphite of barytes is composed of 
Phosphorous ‘acid’. 752. DESL OOO 
Biarytes: sis siete ne = o's e « Of SOE vain as eee 
Water’? peut ese. > Oe 
100-00 
When the phosphorous acid is converted into phosphoric acid, 
these salts still continue neutral. (See Ann. de Chim. et Phys. ii. 
228.) 
8. Borates.—Leopold Gmelin has published a set of experiments 
on several of the borates, which have been hitherto very much 
neglected by chemists. I shall give here the results which he ob- 
tained. 
(1.) Borate of Barytes.—This salt may be obtained by pouring a 
solution of a borate into muriate or acetate of barytes. It must be 
well washed, in order to be tolerably pure. It is a white powder, 
nearly as soluble in water as sulphate of lime. It is more soluble 
in hot than in cold water. Ina red heat it swells a little, and is 
converted into a greenish coloured vesicular mass: 11°921 parts of 
it dissolved in diluted muriatic acid, and precipitated by sulphuric 
acid, gave 9°951 parts of sulphate of barytes. Hence the salt is 
composed of | 
Boratic acd *>, 2) see a7 et OU 
BPAPGIES YUN SARL o's sc). eee Ge Vy cise” Meme cee 
(2.) Borax.—This salt, according to the experiments of Gmelin, 
is composed of 
Boracie Mews JW ik ofdsinys, ca Od°S pues ee OO 
he 1 Oe Ue hiacbiels sole wb hg err wes a) Ga 
VV REN Pe tate. deal edie POE 
100°0 
He considers this salt (contrary to the usual opinion of chemists) 
as a compound of | atom acid + 1 atom soda + 9 atoms water. 
On that supposition an atom of boracic acid would weigh twice as 
much as an atom of soda, or 7875. Thesalt formed by adding 
boracic acid to a solution of borax till it ceases to possess alkaline 
properties contains, according to Gmelin, three times as much 
boragic acid as exists in borax. Borax he considers as a borate of 
soda, and this salt as a triborate of soda. 
(3.) Borate of Ammonia.—This salt is readily formed by dis- 
solving crystallized beracic acid in caustic ammonia. If the am- 
monia be concentrated, the salt crystallizes during the preparation, 
and it may always be obtained in regular crystals by evaporation. 
The crystals are four-sided, and sometimes six-sided prisms, termi- 
nated by four-sided pyramids. The salt is hard, not altered by ex- 
posure to air, and hasa slight alkaline taste, and re-acts as an alkali 
upon vegetable blues. When its solution is heated, it gives out 
