DECOMPOSITION OF FLUORIC ACID. g^ 



Still perhaps sixteen hundred times its bulk of gas. Is it Sulphuric and 



not hence extremely probable, if not even demonstrated, nitric ac,ds 

 * , . . . , , i i • , i c always con- 



that the sulphuric and nitric acids would be in the state of ta j n wa ter. 



«-as, if they were pure ? and that they are indebted for the 

 liquid state, in which we see them, to the water they con- 

 tain ? 



Though our fluoric gas has a great affinity for water, Fluonc S as 



» . . - . , cannot di<- 



and contains none, since it is obtained from matters per- so ive water, 



fectly dry, &c. ; yet it cannot dissolve or convert into gas 



the smallest quantity. We kept a quart of fluoric gas in 



contact with a single drop of water over mercury for several 



hours ; and this drop, instead of disappearing, increased in 



size. Hence it is proved, that this gas cannot contain water 



in any manner, either in the hygrometrical state, or in a 



state of combination. Ammoniacal gas is precisely in the Ammoniacal 



same situation, at least with respect to combined water. S as »»n»lar. 



But it is not the same with muriatic acid gas : this it is true Muriatic acid 



contains no hygrometrical water, but it contains water inti- S as contains 



. . , ._-. __ . i -r> -i ,, n water in com- 



mately combined, as Messrs. Henri and Bertnollet nrst bination. 



showed. By passing muriatic gas, in a gentle heat, through 



litharge, melted and reduced to a coarse powder, we have 



accomplished the extraction of this water, and caused it to 



appear in streams. From the experiments we have made 



on the direct combination of a certain quantity of this acid 



with an excess of oxide of silver, it must form about a 



fourth of its weight. 



The other gasses do not comport themselves with water All other gasses 



like the precedine - . No one contains combined water, but contai « wate* 



. . . uncombmea. 



all contain hygrometrical water. Hence it follows, that 



fluoric acid gas and ammoniacal gas contain neither hygro- 

 metrical water, nor combined water* : that muriatic acid 

 gas contains no hygrometrical water, but does contain com- 

 bined water ; and that all the other gasses contain only hy- 

 grometrical water. 



What is most striking in these results is to see, that ram- Proportions of 



riatic acid gas contains water, and that the fluoric and am- water in muri " 



atic acid gas, 



* It is certain, that, from the experiments of Mr. Berthollet jun. 

 ammoniacal gas contains no combined water; but Gay-Lussac and The- 

 narJ do not yet venture to amrm, that it contains no water in the hy- 

 grometrical state. 



moniacal 



