236 HALOID BASES AND SALTS. 



conjugated ammonia, to explain the basicity of the true nitrogenous 

 alkaloids, we shall find such a mode of explanation perfectly inap- 

 plicable to these non-nitrogenous bases. These haloid bases may 

 be classed as analogous bodies to oxide of ammonium. For as, 

 according to the ammonium-theory of Berzelius, we assume, in the 

 so-called ammonia-salts, the existence of the oxide of a combination 

 of nitrogen and hydrogen, H 4 N, in which this in some degree simu- 

 lates a metal, so also we are equally justified in seeking for the 

 basicity of these substances in the oxide of a carbo-hydrogen ; and 

 more especially since we are already acquainted with pure carbo- 

 hydrogen s possessing decided basic properties, as, for instance, the 

 non-oxygenous ethereal oils. This assumption is not in the least 

 opposed by the circumstance that the carbo-hydrogen s, like the 

 ammonium, combine with oxygen to form basic oxides. It is true 

 that such a mode of viewing the subject leads us back to the 

 frequently attacked, but by no means perfectly controverted or 

 exploded theory of organic radicals ; but, in a department of 

 science so young as chemistry still is, that is the most satisfactory 

 mode of contemplating the subject, which enables us to represent 

 and explain, in the simplest manner, the largest number of analogous 

 phenomena. 



These oxides of the carbo-hydrogen radicals are, however, in 

 their isolated state, so different from the known mineral bases and 

 organic alkaloids, and exhibit such weak basic properties, that for 

 a long period it was altogether denied that they possessed the cha- 

 racter of a base. It is with difficulty that they combine either with 

 acids or with water. Even their hydrates differ so greatly from the 

 anhydrous oxides, that they were formerly regarded as perfectly 

 different bodies, and ether was carefully distinguished from alcohol, 

 oxide of amyl from fusel oil, and oxide of methyl from pyroxylic 

 spirit. Moreover, it is only with difficulty, and in certain instances, 

 that we can separate the water from these hydrates. In the same 

 way, their combinations with acids, although most of them are per- 

 fectly neutral, bear very little resemblance in their character to 

 salts, and hence most of them have received trivial names, as, 

 naphthas, fats, &c. 



As has been already mentioned, the haloid bases form neutral 

 as well as acid salts ; in the former the acidity of the stronger acids 

 is, for the most part, far more perfectly neutralised than in the 

 salts of the nitrogenous alkaloids ; for the neutral salts, with a 

 few exceptions, exert no action on litmus; they are, however, 

 essentially distinguished from the salts of almost all other known 



