Researches respecting the radical of Benzoie Acid. 281 
of needle-form crystals are deposited, which are unchanged ben- 
zoin. 
General Observations.—Reviewing and collecting together the 
relations described in the present essay, we find that they all group 
around one single compound, which does not change its nature and 
composition in all its combining relations with other bodies. This 
stability, this consequence of the phenomena, induced us to consider 
that body as a compound base and therefore to propose for it a pe- 
culiar name, i. e. benzoyl. 
The composition of this radical we have expressed by the formula 
14 C+10H+20. 
In combination with one atom of oxygen, benz6yl forms dry ben- 
zoic acid, and in combination with one atom of oxygen, one of water, 
the crystallized acid. 
In combination with two atoms of hydrogen, it constitutes pure 
bitter almond oil. When this oil changes in the air into Benzoic 
acid, it takes up two atoms of oxygen, one of which with the radi- 
cal generates benzoic acid and the other with the two atoms of hy- 
drogen forms the water of the crystallized acid. 
Farther, thehydrogen of the oil or the oxygen of the acid may 
be replaced by chlorine, bromine, iodine, sulphur or cyanogen, and 
the bodies proceeding thence, comparable with the corresponding 
compounds of phosphorus, all form, by their decomposition with wa- 
ter, on the one side a hydracid, and on the other benzoic acid. 
The replacement, of two atoms of hydrogen in the bitter almond 
oil by an acidifying base, appears to us in all cases a strong argument 
for adopting the opinion, that this hydrogen is in a peculiar manner 
combined with the other elements; this peculiar method of combi- 
nation may be hinted at rather than pointed out by the idea of the rad- 
ical, which is borrowed from inorganic chemistry. 
Although both benzamide and benzoin were originally in connection 
with the radical, they are wholly without its sphere, and must be con- 
sidered as peculiar bodies, bearing no nearer relation to benzoyl, than 
the cuttings of bone to ammonia. 
Since we cannot compare the ternary base with cyanogen, be- 
cause the greater number of elements must occasion far more com- 
plicated decompositions, and because they have no prevailing resem- 
blance, we believe it not improbable, that there is more than one 
group of organic bodies, for example, the fluid oils, which may have 
this same radical as a compound basis. How far such a conjecture 
