60 Existence of Compound Radicals in Amphide Salts. 



nitric acid does not contain NO 5 and HO, but consists of hydrogen 

 united to a compound radical NO 6 , and the acetic acid is written 

 C 4 H 3 4 +H, the oxalic acid C 2 4 +H, and so on. 



" The elegance and simplicity with which the laws of saline 

 combination may be deduced from these principles is really re- 

 markable. Thus it has been remarked as a fact substantiated by 

 experiment, that in neutral salts the number of equivalents of 

 acid were proportional to the number of equivalents of oxygen 

 in the base, but the ordinary theory gave no indication of why 

 this should occur. It follows necessarily from the principles of 

 the newer theory. Thus, if a protoxide be acted on by an acid, 

 M denoting the metal of the oxide, and R the radical of the acid, 

 the resulting action is 



M + O and H+R, produce H+O and M+R, 

 and in the neutral salt there is an equivalent of each. Now in 

 the case of a sesquioxide, in order that water shall be formed, 

 and so neither acid nor base in excess, the reaction is that 



M 3 +0 3 and 3(H+R), produce 3(H+0) and M 2 +R 3 , 

 a sesqui-compound being formed perfectly analogous to a sesqui- 

 oxide, and the number of atoms of acid, 3(H + R), is equal to 

 the number of atoms of oxygen in the base (M 2 3 ), because that 

 number of atoms of hydrogen are required for the decomposition 

 of the base. In like manner for a deutoxide, there is 



M + O 2 and 2(H+R), producing 2(HO) and M+R 3 . 

 The power of salts to replace water in the magnesian sulphates, 

 so as to form double salts, becomes much more intelligible when 

 we compare H + O with K + SO 4 , than where HO was contrast- 

 ed with the complex formula KO + SO 3 . 



" The circumstance that on the new theory (or as it is now 

 often called, the binary theory of salts,) it is necessary to admit 

 the existence of a great number of bodies (these salt radicals) 

 which have never been isolated, and in favor of whose existence 

 there is no other proof than their utility in supporting this view, 

 becomes more powerful as an objection, when we proceed to ap- 

 ply its principles to the salts of phosphoric acid. For it has 

 been already described, that this acid forms three distinct classes 

 of salts, all neutral, and which have their origin in the three hy- 

 drated states of the phosphoric acid. These states are written 

 on the two views as follows : — 



