0§ DECOMPOSITION OF BORACIC ACID. 1 



of the alkaline metals by this acid? How too happens it on 

 the hypothesis of it disoxigenation, that no water is produ- 

 ced ? Can we admit the disoxigenation of one substance, 

 and the dishidrogenation of another at the same time, with- 

 out producing water sufficient to be collected", and have its 

 weight calculated ? Undoubtedly not. Thus, were this the 

 only objection to the decomposition of boracic acid, it would 

 suffice to prove, that the new state, in which this acid is ob- 

 tained, is not owing to its disoxigenation. But as there are 

 still many other objections, which the philosophy of the. 

 science suggests, we cannot do otherwise than consider the 

 new substance, into which the boracic acid is converted, as a 

 combination of this acid with the hidrogen and the carbon, 

 that it has taken from the alkaline metal. 

 This accounts According to this theory we find no difficuly [in explain- 

 er the hidro- • why, during; the action of the boracic acid on the me- 

 gen appearing _ . ... . 



in no form, tal of potash,, neither water nor hidrogen is disengaged; 



while on the hypothesis of the disoxigenation of this acid, 

 we know not what becomes of the hidrogen, which the al- 

 kaline metal must necessarily lose. 



This explanation, independently of its accounting for all 

 the phenomena, has the farther advantage of leading to a 

 more simple definition of an important point in chemistry, 

 on which the opinion of chemists is not yet thoroughly 

 fixed. 

 Phenomena of With respect to the phenomena exhibited by the combus- 

 the combus- tion of the substance, that produces the boracic acid, they 

 are owing to the oxigenation of the hidrogen and carbon, 

 which this acid had abstracted from the metal of potash; 

 so that by the subtraction of these two principles it be- 

 comes boracic acid. again, as by the same subtraction the 

 alkaline metal had again become an alkali. 

 Hldrosenand Tf we consider too, that hidrogen and carbon, in their 

 carbon more state of combination with boracic acid, are less oxigenizable 

 than they were when combined with the alkali, every thing 

 leads us to believe, that this arises ficm the two principles 

 having acquired a fresh degree of condensation at the in- 

 stant of their union with the boracic acid: and what ap- 

 pears to give some foundation to this conjecture is, that, at 

 the moment when the combination takes place, the matter 



instantaneously 



dense in bore. 

 than in potas 

 slum. 



