T. 8. Hunt on the Relations of Water and Hydrogen. 195 
and (Cl M)Oz, while anhydrous hypochlorous acid is Cl2O2, the 
result of a complete substitution. “In the same manner nitric 
acid, NHOs, is a monobasic salt (i. e. acid), corresponding to wa- 
ter in which NOz is substituted for H, as in many organic com- 
pounds; we have then (NOz, H)O and (NOz, M)O;” or (NO, H) 
O: in the notation adopted above. “As an adaptation of this 
idea to bibasic compounds, sulphuric acid, S H2Os, is to be re- 
garded as water in which S HOs replaces H; thus (S HOs, H)O. 
As the replacing elements contain an equivalent of hydrogen 
which is saline (i. e. replaceable by a metal), the acid is bibasic. 
When the hydrogen in S HOs is replaced by a metal, we have a 
class of acid sulphates like (SKOs,H)O. The complete re- 
placement of hydrogen in the original type yields (S HO:)20, 
Which is the Nordhausen acid commonly represented by 280s, 
20. This latter compound as Gerhardt has shown, corresponds 
to the anhydrous bisulphate of potash.” 
__ “The tribasic acids may equally be reduced to the same type, 
if we conceive the elements which replace one equivalent of hy- 
drogen, to be bibasic instead of neutral or monobasic ; phosphoric 
acid, PHsO4 is (P H2O:, H)O.” 
“The primitive saline type is then essentially bibasic, and is 
presented in its most elemental form in water, while the simplest 
type of the monobasic salt, which is a derivative of the last, is 
found in hypochlorous acid.” p. 174. This view of the deriva- 
ion of polybasie acids is illustrated by the bibasie sulphacetic, 
and the tribasic sulphosuecinic acid. 
On page 177 we further remark, that “the binary molecule of 
the metals, hydrogen, chlorine, bromine, ete. will be seen to be 
the type of an immense number of combinations, embracing the 
Various alloys and amalgams, the hydracids like hydrochloric 
acid, with their corresponding salts, and such compounds as Cl Br 
and CII, while [Cls is referable to a triple molecule of these ele- 
ments, represented by Ho; to this type belong the perchlorids 
of atitimony, arsenic and phosphorus, while the corresponding 
ttichlorids form a double molecule.” : 
In a subsequent Essay on Chemical Classification read before 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at 
Philadelphia, in September, 1848, and published in this Journal 
t May and July, 1849, (vols. vii and viii,) we observed that the 
lation between alcohol and acetene is that which subsists be- 
tween the two types H:Oz, and He, acetene being hydrogen in 
Which ethyle replaces H, thus C:Hs,H=C:Ho, while hydro- 
chloric ether is a chlorinized hydrocarbon corresponding to hy- 
rochloric acid, so that having repeated what has been already 
Cited as to the type Hz, we add, “moreover it follows from the 
relations of HCl to the chlorinized hydrocarbons, that it (H2) is 
the type of all the hydrocarbons, as well as of the alkaloids 
