250 Existence of Radicals in the Amphide Salts disproved. 
it should be shown wherefore heat causes the baryta, a perfectly 
fixed body, to unite more readily with an aériform substance in 
which increase of temperature must, by rarefaction, diminish the 
number of its particles in contact with the solid. If the only an- 
swer be, that heat effects some mysterious changes in affinity, 
(or as I would say in the electrical state of the particles, ) it should 
be shown that the presence of water or any other base has not 
been productive of a similar change, before another explanation 
is held to be necessary.. But I would also call to mind that the 
hydrated acid is presented in the liquid state; and if it be asked 
why water, having less affinity than baryta, can better cause the 
condensation of the acid, I reply, that it is brought into contact 
with the acid both as a liquid and a vapor, of neither of which 
forms is the earthy base susceptible. But if all that is necessary to 
convert anhydrous sulphuric acid into an oxysulphionide, be an 
atom of oxygen and an atom of metal, what is to prevent baryta 
and anhydrous sulphuric acid from forming an oxysulphionide of 
barium? All the elements are present which are necessary to form 
either a sulphate or oxysulphionide ; and I am unable to conceive 
wherefore the inability to combine does not operate as much 
against the existence of radicals as of bases. 
60. I would be glad to learn why, agreeably to the salt radical 
theory, anhydrous sulphuric acid unites with water more greedily 
than with baryta, and yet abandons the water promptly on being 
presented to this base. Why should it form an oxysulphionide 
with hydrogen more readily than with barium, and yet display, 
subsequently, a vastly superior affinity for barium ? 
61. It seems to be overlooked, that anhydrous sulphuric acid, 
being the oxysulphion of the sulphites, ought to form sudphites on 
contact with metals. 
62. But if the sulphate of water owe its energy to that portion 
of this liquid, which, by its decomposition gives rise to the com- 
pound radical oxysulphion, and not to the portion which operates 
as a solvent, wherefore in the concentrated state, will it not react 
with iron and zinc, without additional water, when, with dilution, 
it reacts most powerfully with those metals. 
63. Some stress has been laid upon the fact, that sourness is not 
perceived, excepting with the aid of water, as if to derive force 
for the new doctrine from that old and popular, though now aban- 
- doned test of acidity ; but it should be recollected that it is not the 
