56 Existence of Radicals in the Amphide Salts disproved. 
the grounds upon which it has been justified. Consistently with 
the language suggested by Daniell, hydrous sulphuric acid, con- 
stituted of one atom of acid and one of basic water, (SO?+HO) 
is a compound of oxysulphion and hydrogen (SO*+H.) Nitric 
acid (NO°+HO) is a compound of oxynitrion and hydrogen 
(NO°+H.) In like manner we should have oxyphosphion in 
phosphoric acid, oxyarsenion in arsenic acid, and in all acids, 
hitherto called hydrated, whether organic or inorganic, we should 
have radicals designated by names made after the same plan. 
Their salts having corresponding appellations, would be oxysul- 
phionides, oxynitrionides, &c. Also, in any salt in which any 
other of the amphigen class of Berzelius is the electro-negative 
ingredient, whether sulphur, selenium, or tellurium, all the ingre- 
dients excepting the electro-positive radical, would be considered 
as constituting a compound electro-negative radical.* 
3. It may be expedient to take this opportunity of mentioning 
that the advocates of this new view, disadvantageously, as I think, 
employ the word radical, to designate the electro-negative, as 
well as the electro-positive ingredient. Agreeably to the nomen- 
clature of Berzelius, the former would be a compound halogen 
* The conception of the existence of salt radicals seems to have originated with 
Davy. It was suggested by Berzelius, in his letter in reply to some strictures 
which I published on his nomenclature, in the following language :— 
“Tf, for instance, the true electro-chemical composition of the sulphate of potash 
should not be KO-+S0O3, as is generally supposed, but K+-SO4, and it appears 
very natural that atoms, so eminently electro-negative as sulphur and oxygen, 
should be associated, we have, in the salt in question, potassium combined with a 
compound body, which, like cyanogen in K+C2N, imitates simple halogen 
bodies, and gives a salt with potassium and other metals. The hydrated oxacids, 
agreeably to this view, would be then hydracids of a compound halogen body, 
from which metals may displace hydrogen, as in the hydracids of simple halogen 
bodies. Thus we know that SO3, that is to say, anhydrous sulphuric acid, is a 
body whose properties, as respects acidity, differ from those which we should ex- 
pect in the active principle of hydrous sulphuric acid. 
“‘ The difference between the oxysalts and the halosalts is very easily illustrated 
by formule. In KFF (fluoride of potassium,) there is but one single line of sub- 
stitution, that is to say, that of K\{FF; whilst in KOOOOS (sulphate of potash,) 
there are two, KJ|OOOOS and KO|OQOOS, of which we use the first in replacing 
one metal by another, for instance, copper by iron; and the second in replacing 
one oxide by another. 
“‘¥ do not know what value you may attach to this development of the constitu- 
tion of the oxysalts, (which applies equally to the sulphosalts and others ;) but as 
to myself, I have a thorough conviction that there is therein something more than 
a vague speculation, since it unfolds to us an internal analogy in phenomena, 
which, agreeably to the perception of our senses, are extremely analogous.” 
