$4 Muriatic or Aid of Sea Salt. [Book VL 



;-d mercurj, which readily part vvitK oxygen. The 

 acid refuhing from this procefs, and which is called 

 oxygenated muriatic aciH, can on.y, like ^the former, 

 exift in the gafleous ftate. and is abiorbed in a much 

 fmaller quantity by water. When the impregnation 

 cf water by this gas is carried beyond a certain point, 

 the fuperabundant acid precipitates to the bottom of 

 the veffel in a concrete form. M. Berthollet has 

 ftiewn that this acid gas is capable of being united 

 with a great number of falifiable bafes -, the neutral 

 falts which refult fnom this union are capable of 

 deflagrating with charcoal, and fome of the metallic 

 fubftances : thefe detonations are very violent and 

 dangerous, from the great quantity of the matter of 

 heat which the oxygen carries along with it into the 

 compofition of the oxygenated muriatic acid. 



The muriatic acid in the oxygenated ftate has 

 alfo a remarkable power of rendering vegetable and 

 animal matters white. The reducing of this principle 

 to practice has, indeed, been productive of a very 

 eflential improvement in the art of bleaching, and for 

 this too we are indebted to M. Berthollet*. By 

 various experiments he was enabled to afcertain that 

 the oxygenated or dephlogifticated marine acid, as 

 it was at firft called, only differs from the common 

 marine acid, in containing a fuperabundance of oxygen, 

 with which it very readily parts. He difcovered 

 further, that oxygen has a remarkable property of de- 

 ftroying the c >lours of vegetable matters j that even 

 the dew which falls from the atmofphere, and that 

 which comes from the nocturnal tranfpiration of plants, 

 were impregnated with oxygen, fufficiently to deftroy 

 the colour of paper, {lightly tinged with tincture of 



* Annales de Chymie. 



turnible. 



