j(j4 ON THE WATER IN MURIATE OF AMMONIA. 



the proportion of hidrogen to less than one half, (using 

 four measures to ten of carbonic oxide instead of equal 

 measures) thus not only altering it in a material circum- 

 stance, but withdrawing as far as possible the very circum- 

 stance, which I had held essential to its success. And to 

 prove, that the results of my experiments had arisen from 

 the presence of atmospheric air, or of moisture in the gasses, 

 they brought forward an experiment, in which both these 

 were allowed to operate, instead of being excluded; and 

 then contended, that the partial conversion of carbonic 

 oxide into carbonic acid, which they did obtain, arose from 

 the very sources of fallacy, which it ought to have been 

 their care to exclude, but which they thus chose to admit. 

 0k* n.-rmiuid At length, after all these attempts, Mr. J. Davy an- 

 •Lr ' nounecd the discovery of a new gas, a compound as he 

 supposed of oximuriatic acid and carbonic oxide, by the 

 operation of which he farther supposed the formation of 

 carbonic acid might be accounted for in conformity to his 

 brother's hypothesis; and then heat once admitted what 

 I bad uniformly a-serted, and what he and his brother had 

 before as steadily denied, that the carbonic oxide disappears, 

 and that carbonic acid is obtained, when the ammoniacal 

 salt is decomposed by an acid. "Repeating my experi- 

 ment on the exposure of the three gasses to light," he 

 detected, " after the addition of ammonia, no traces of car- 

 bonic oxide;" and he perceived " an effervescence of the 

 *« ammoniacal salt with nitric acid," which effervescence he 

 farther admits to be owing to carbonic acid*. These are 

 the precise results 1 had obtained. How then can Mr. J. 

 Davy venture to. assert, that there are no experiments of 

 mine the accuracy of which has been admitted? or how does 

 he reconcile the admissions he now makes with the former 

 positive assertions by himself and his brother, that, in the 

 mutual action of these three gasses, the carbonic oxide re- 

 mains unchanged, and no carbonic acid is formed? 



There is one mode indeed, by which he throws some 



ftnS sjkI to be i ■• i . 



effected iudi- obscurity over this result ot the controversy. He raaiu- 



*«-'tiy. tain?, that the production of carbonic acid in these experi- 



ments is effected in an indirect mode; the oximuriatic acid 



» Journal, vol. XXX> p- 30, vol. XXXI, p. 3iJ, 



and. 



