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PART II. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION OF MURIATIC ACID 

 GAS, AND ON SOME OTHER SUBJECTS OE CHEMICAL THEORY. 



Admitting water to be procured from muriatic acid gas in 

 those forms of experiment, direct or indirect, in which the 

 agency of no other substance that can afford it, is introduced, 

 the conclusion seems necessarily to follow, which forms the ba- 

 sis of one of the two systems under which the relations of oxy- 

 muriatic and muriatic acids have of late years been explained, 

 — that oxymuriatic acid is a compound of muriatic acid with 

 oxygen ; and that muriatic acid in its gaseous state, contains 

 combined water. This doctrine, accordingly, may be main- 

 tained, and may even perhaps be just. It is not, therefore, 

 from the consideration of any deficiency in its support, that I 

 depart from it in the following observations, but that I consi- 

 der the view I have to propose as perhaps more probable, or at 

 least as, on the whole, according better with the present state 

 of chemical theory. In a science such as Chemistry, the prin- 

 ciples of which rest, rather on probable evidence, than on de- 

 monstration, it is of importance to present a subject in every 

 point of view under which it may be surveyed ; and this must 

 serve as an apology for the speculations I have now to offer. 



There 



