276 Chemical Nomenclature of Berzelius. 
quantity as would have been found in any oxybase neutralizing the 
same quantity of acid. ‘The ammonia and water, therefore, taken to- 
gether, represent an oxide of the radical ammonium, composed of 
two atoms(75) of the radical and one of oxygen. ‘This mode of 
representing the compounds of ammonia, makes them conform to the 
general analogies of the oxysalts. In like manner the combination 
of the hydric sulphide with ammonia may be considered as the am- 
monic sulphuret, which may combine further, with two, three, four, 
and five atoms of sulphur. These salts in which ammonia appears 
to form an oxybase or a sulphobase, I call ammonic salts or salts 
of ammonium. 
When on the contrary, ammonia combines with the anhydrous acids, 
as with carbonic or sulphurous acid gas, or with anhydrous chlorides, 
fluorides, &c. compounds result. which contain ammonia, but not the 
oxide of ammonium, and which have very different properties from 
the ammonic salts. 
They are called, for example, carbonate of ammonia, or ammont- 
acal carbonate, sulphite of ammonia, &c. Water converts them into 
salts of ammonium. 
Ammonia combines frequently, as such, and not as an oxide of 
ammonium, with neutral salts. It then produces basic ammoniacal 
salts. Some examples are subjoined : 
Ammoniacal mercuric nitrate. 
Ammoniacal argentic sulphate. 
Ammoniacal calcic chloruret. 
Ammoniacal phosphorous chloride. 
(75) Berzelius considers water as a compound of two atoms of hydrogen and one 
of oxygen.— Trans. 
