FULMINATING MERCURY. 205 



by comparing the quantity of oxalic acid whirh can be generated 

 from given measures of nitrous acid and alcohol, wilh the inter- 

 vention of mercury, and the intervention of other metals. For 

 instance, when two meai-urnl ounces of alcohol are tr-vated with a 

 solution of 10J gtaiiis o f ni(k<-l, in a measured ou.nce and a half 

 of nitrous acid, liltle or no precipitate is produced; yet, by the 

 addition of oxalic acid to (he residuary liquor, a quantity of oxa. 

 late of nickel, after some repose, is deposited. Copper affords 

 another illustration; ICO grains of copper, dissolved in a mea- 

 sured ounce and a half of nitrous acid, and treated with alcohol, 

 yielded me about eighteen grains of oxalate. although cupreous 

 oxalate was plentifully generated, by dropping oxalic acid into the 

 residuary liquor. About twenty-one grains of pure oxalic acid 

 seem to be produced from the same materials, when 100 grains of 

 mercury are interposed. Besides, according to the Dutch paper, 

 more than once referred to, acetous acid is the principal residue 

 after the preparations of nitrous ether. How can we explain the 

 formation of a greater quantity of oxalic acid, from the same 

 materials, with the intervention of 100 grains of mercury, than 

 with the intervention of 100 grains of copper, otherwise than by 

 the notion of conspiring affinities, so analogous to what we see in 

 other phenomena of nature ? 



" I have attempted, without success, to communicate fulminat- 

 ing properties, by means of alcohol, to gold, platina, antimony, 

 tin, copper, iron, lead, zinc, nickel, bismuth, cobalt, arsenic, and 

 manganese; but I have not yet sufficiently varied my experiments 

 to enable me to speak with absolute certainty. Silver, when 

 twenty grains of it were treated with nearly the same proportions 

 of nitrous acid and alcohol, as 100 grains of mercury, yielded, at 

 the end of the ope. a ion, about three grains of a grey precipitate, 

 which fulminated with extreme violence. Mr. Cruickshank had 

 the goodness to repeat the experiment : he dissolved forty grains 

 of silver, in two ounces of the strongest nitrous acid, diluted with 

 an equal quantity of water, and obtained (by means of two ounces 

 of alcohol) sixty grains of a very white powder, which fulminated 

 like the grey precipitate above described. It probably combines 

 with the same principles as the mercury, and of course differs from 

 Mr. Berthollet's fulminating silver, before alluded to. I observe, 

 that a white precipitate is always produced in the first instance ; 

 and that it may be preserved by adding water as soon as it i* 



