Existence of Radicals in the Amphide Salts disproved. 251 
water which goes to form the compound element in the ‘‘hydra- 
cids,” erroneously so called, which confers sourness. Will any 
one pretend that either sulphuric or nitric acid, when concentra- 
ted, issour? Are they not caustic? Can any of the crystallized 
organic acids be said to have a sour taste, independently of the 
moisture of the tongue? 'The hydrated oily acids being incapa- 
ble of uniting with water as a solvent, have none of these vul- 
gar attributes of acidity. ‘The absence of these attributes in prus- 
sic acid would alone be sufficient to render it inconsistent to 
consider them as having any connexion with the presence of hy- 
drogen. 
64. It has been remarked, that liquid carbonic acid does not 
combine with oxides on contact. To this I would add, that it does 
not combine with water under those circumstances, but, on the 
contrary, separates from it like oil, after mechanical mixture: nor 
does it, under any circumstances, unite with an equivalent propor- 
tion of water to form a hydrate. Of course, as it is not to basic 
water that it is indebted for its ability to become an ingredient in 
salts, it cannot be held that this faculty is the result of its previous 
conversion into an oxycarbionide of hydrogen. 
65. Chromic acid is admitted not to require water for isolation, 
and cannot, therefore, be considered as oxychromionide of hydro- 
gen. Yet the oil of bitter almonds, which consists of a compound 
radical, benzule, and an atom of hydrogen, and which is there- 
fore constituted precisely as the salt radical doctrine requires for 
endowment with the attributes of an “hydracid,” is utterly des- 
titute of that acid reaction which hydrogen is represented as pe-~ 
culiarly competent to impart. It follows that we have, on the 
one hand, in chromic acid, a compound endowed with the attri- 
butes of acidity, without being a hydruret of any compound ra- 
dical ; and, on the other, in oil of bitter almonds, a hydruret of a 
compound radical, without any of the attributes of acidity. 
66. The last argument in favor of the existence of salt radicals, 
which I have to answer, is that founded on certain results of the 
electrolysis of saline solutions.* 
* [t is well known that Faraday employed a very simple instrument to ascer- 
tain the quantity of the gaseous elements of water yielded in a given time, by a 
liquid subjected to the voltaic current. It consisted of a graduated tube, through 
the cavity of which the current was conveyed by wires, so terminating within 
‘it, as to have an interval between them through which the current, being convey- 
