106 CHEMICAL THEORY ILLUSTRATED BY NEW FACTS. 



of potassium and iron on silex, the iron, as I liave mention- 

 ed before, was rendered white, and very hard and brittie, 

 but it did not seem to be more oxidable. Researches upon 

 this subject do not appear unworthy of pursuit, and they 

 may possibly tend to improve some of our tnost important 

 manufactures, and give new instruments to the useful arts. 



V. Some Considerations of Theory illustrated by neio Facts. 



Speculations Hidrogen is the body which combines with the largest 



•ihidrocen proportion of oxigen, and yet it forms wiih it a neutral 

 compound. This on the hypothesis of electrical energy 

 would show, that it must be much more highly positive than 

 any other substance; and therefore, if it be an oxide, it is 

 not likely that it should be deprived of oxigen by any simple 

 chemical attractions. The fact of its forujing a substance 

 approaching to an acid in its nature, when combined with 

 a metallic substance, tellurium, is opposed to the idea of 

 its being a gaseous metal, and perhaps to the idea that it is, 

 simple, or that it exists in its common form in the amalgam 

 of ammonium. The phenomena presented by sulphuretted 

 hidrogen are of the same kind, and lead to sirailat con- 

 clusions. 



•noriatic acid Muriaiic acid gas, as I have shown, and as is farther 

 * proved V)y the researches of Messrs. Gay-Lussac and The- 



nard, is a compound of a body unknown in a separate state^ 

 and water. The water, I believe, cannot be decomposed, 

 unless a new combination is formed : thus it is not changed 

 by charcoal ignited in the gas by Voltaic electricity ; but it 

 is decomposed by all t))e metals; and in these cases hidro- 

 gen is elicited, in a manner similar to that in which one 

 metal is precipitated by another; the oxigen being found in 

 the new compound. This at first view might be supposed 

 in favour of the idea, that hidrogen is a simple substance; 

 ]3ut the same reiisoning may be applied to a protoxide as to 

 a metal ; and in the case of the nitromuriatic acid, when 

 the nitrous acid is decomposed to assist in the formation of 

 a metallic muriate, the body disengaged (nitrous gas) i» 

 known to be in a high stale of oxigenation. 



and nitrogen. That nitrogen is not a metal in th.e form of gas, is almost 

 demonstrated by the nature of the fusible substance from 



ammonia ; 



