T. S. Hunt on Chemical Classifications. 89 



It should hence be remembered that 



If the material is not marine in origin, in any part, it may be 

 glacial, or lacustrine, or else a result of running fresh waters in 

 one or another mode : and the terraces may be either river, lacus- 

 trine, or glacial terraces, and cannot be " sea margins. 



If the material is of marine origin, it may be either of sea- 

 beach or deep water formation, and the terraces may be either a 

 result of action along sea margins, or estuaries, or rivers, or bor- 



dering lakes, or bounding glacial valleys. These are points for 



M 



investigation which no protests can set aside. 



Art. IX. — On some principles to be considered in Chemical 

 Classifications ; by T. S. Hunt, Chemist to the Geological 

 Survey of Canada. 



(Continued from voL vii, ii ser., p. 405.) 



In illustration of this proposition, let us consider the basic re- 

 lations of the different classes of coupled compounds — 1st. Acids 

 with alcohols; if in some cases it were difficult to determine 

 which is the body losing the hydrogen replaceable by a metal, an 

 examination of the ethers would readily remove the difficulty, for 

 as already observed, those of the hydracids show that the acid is 

 the species to which the ether is to be referred, and by analogy, 

 all the ethers and vinic acids are to be regarded as species of the 

 saline genus to which the forming acid belongs. In accordance 

 with this deduction and with the law of basicity already cited, 

 the ethers of monobasic acids are neutral, those of bibasic acids, 

 with one equivalent of alcohol monobasic, and with two neutral, 

 while a tribasic acid produces, with three atoms of an alcohol a 

 neutral ether, and with one a bibasic vinic acid. In these the 

 alcohol acts as a neutral body, and hence for phosphovinic acid 

 3 + 0- 1^=2, but the alcohols are really in a feeble degree saline 

 and monobasic, as is shown in such compounds as C 2 (H 5 K)0 

 and the mercaptids ; if they were to preserve this character in 

 combination, the ether of a monobasic acid would be itself mono- 

 basic. Cahours has found that the ethylic and methylic ethers 

 °f salicylic acid, which is monobasic, are capable of exchang- 

 lri g an equivalent of hydrogen for potassium or barium, so that 

 the salts ihus formed are in fact the ethers of potassic alcohol 

 a "d methol. These ethers do not possess the power of combin- 

 ln g with ammonia, and are thus distinguished from ordinary 

 Monobasic acids; we cannot substitute NH 4 for H in alcohol, 

 ^hich seems to be the reason of this apparently anomalous be- 

 havior of these ether-acids with ammonia. 



Acids ivith Ammonia and other alkaloids.— The relations of 

 the amids to the ethers have been before noticed, as showing a 



Second Series, VoL VIII, No. 22.— July, 1849. 12 



