INFLAMMABLES. 307 



GENERAL PROPERTIES OF ACIDS. THEIR NOMENCLATURE. 



1 . Most of them sour. 



2. Soluble in water ; most of them largely some very sparingly. 



3. Redden most of the vegetable blues restore the colors that 

 have been changed by alkalies or alkaline earths. 



4. Combine with alkalies, earths, and other metallic oxides, and 

 form salts. 



5. The stronger acids corrosive. 



6. They consist generally, of an inflammable base, combined with 

 oxygen ; in a few cases hydrogen takes its place.* 



7. Exist solid, fluid and gaseous, in different cases. 



NOMENCLATURE OF THE ACIDS. 



(a.) In the new or French nomenclature, acids are named from 

 the inflammable bases. 



(b.) The termination ic denotes the higher combination with oxy- 

 gen ; ows, a lower, and the proportions in both are definite. 



(c.) Where there is only one proportion of oxygen the termination 

 is in ic. 



(d.) Where the base is complex, as in the animal and vegetable 

 acids, the termination ic means nothing, and the acid is usually 

 named from the substance which affords it ; as tartaric acid, from 

 tartar, &c. 



(e.) The names of the hydracids, as they are called, terminate in 

 1C, as hydrochloric, hydriodic, &c. 



SULPHURIC ACID. 



1. NAME. Derived from sulphur, the inflammable base, which 

 affords also other acids. Oil of Vitriol is the name of the shops.f 



2. HISTORY. Discovered by Basil Valentine, at the close of the 

 15th century. 



3. EARLY PROCESS. By distilling sulphate^ of iron, (copperas,) 

 whose water of crystallization, amounting to about one half its weight, 

 had been previously dissipated by a moderate heat. This process 

 is still followed in Saxony ; 600 Ibs. of copperas gave Bernhardt 

 but 64 of the acid, and when no water was put into the receiver, 52 

 pounds of a dry concrete acid were obtained, formerly called glacial 

 oil of vitriol. Glauber says that sulphate of zinc affords a purer and 

 better acid, and with less heat. 



* Sulphuretted hydrogen and prussic acid, consist wholly of combustible elements. 

 Chloric acid is composed of two supporters of combustion and some would refer the 

 oxiodic and the chloriodie acids to the latter class. 



t Because it was distilled from green vitriol, and has an oily consistence ; it was 

 called spirit of vitriol, when it was less concentrated. 



t It is the sulphate of the protoxide, which passes to the condition of peroxide. 



Parkcs' Essays, Vol. I. p. 468. 



