On Chemical JVomendainre. 267 



amphigen class ; which incongruity is, in his opinion, a sufficient 

 reason for not considering them as simple saUs, and their ingredients 

 as acids and bases, agreeably to the opinions of De Bondsdorff and 

 myself. 



Berzelius errs in confounding my opinions with those of De Bons- 

 dorfF. However I may have admired the sagacity with which that 

 chemist investigated the pretensions of some haloid salts to certain 

 attributes of acidity or alkalinity 5 in my letter on the Berzelian no- 

 menclature, I signified my unwillingness to rest my opinions upon a 

 basis so narrow, as that which he had endeavored to establish. I 

 stated that I did not deem it necessary to appeal to his excellent ob- 

 servations, proving certain attributes of acidity to exist in one case, 

 those of alkalinity in the other. I alleged my definition to be foun- 

 ded on the conviction that the property of affecting vegetable colors, 

 on which that sagacious chemist Jays so much stress, has not latterly, 

 been deemed necessary in acids; and that in bases never was requir- 

 ed. As respects them, it only served as a mean of subdivision be- 

 tween alkaline oxides and other oxibases. 



I am at a loss to discover in what part of my letter there was any 

 language which could convey the erroneous impression, that, in de- 

 fining acids and bases I proposed to overlook properties, and to be 

 regulated by attention to the number of atoms in a compound. Cer- 

 tainly nothing was more foreign to my thoughts. 



It is assumed by Berzelius that the saturation of the fluobase of 

 potassium by fluohydric acid, cannot be considered as analogous to 

 the saturation of the oxybase of potassium by sulphuric acid ; be- 

 cause the resulting compound is to the taste, in one case neutral, 

 in the other sour. In reply I suggested that if the salidity of the bi- 

 borates and bicarbonates was not to be questioned on account of their 

 alkaline taste, nor that of the protochloride of tin on account of its 

 sourness, it was not consistent that the pretensions to salidity of the 

 fluohydrate of the fluobase of potassium should be denied on account 

 of its sour taste. I will now add that if the fluosilicate of potassium 

 be a double salt, the fluoride of silicon one of its two constituents 

 must be a simple salt, and yet it is sour. If a simple salt may be 

 sour, why may not a double salt have this attribute ; and how in fact 

 can its presence be inconsistent with salidity ? Is not the absence of 

 this characteristic in silica and tannin, and many other acids, as much 

 against their claims to acidity, as its presence in other compounds is 

 an objection to their association with saline bodies. It is considered 



