in different chemical Processes on Fluor Spar. 875 



muriatic acid, composed of hydrogen, and a substance, as yet 

 unknown, in a separate form, possessed, like oxygen and chlo- 

 rine, of the negative electrical energy, and hence determined 

 to tlie positive surface, and strongly attracted by metallic sub- 

 stances. 



This view is much more conformable to the general order 

 of chemical and electrical facts than the third hypothesis, just 

 now mentioned. 



It is indeed possible to conceive, if the metals be regarded 

 as compounds of hydrogen, that the hydrogen may be pro- 

 duced from the metal, positively electrified at the time that 

 the acid combines with its supposed basis, and that this hydro- 

 gen may be transferred to the negative surface ; but this sup- 

 position involves a multitude of others ; and the results of the 

 electrization of fluoric acid are analogous to most of the results 

 of the electrization of water and muriatic acid, both of which are 

 shewn by analysis and synthesis to be compounds of hydro- 

 gen; and in the electrical decomposition of these bodies, their 

 characteristic element is generally combined with the positive 

 metallic surface. 



In the Bakerian Lecture for 1810, 1 have given an account 

 of the action of potassium upon pure silica. In this process, 

 the potassium acquires oxygen, and a combustible substance, 

 which consists either of the basis of silica, or the basis of silica 

 combined with potassium appears. In supposing the siiicated 

 fluoric acid gas to be composed of this basis and the fluoric 

 principle, it is easy to explain the action of potassium upon it, 

 and the complicated phenomena, occasioned by the agency of 

 water, and acids, and oxygen, on the results of this action. 

 The potassium must be conceived to attract a part of the fluoric 



