314 OBSERVATIONS ON MURIATIC ACID, 



union it forms nitric acid, a compound more permanent, and 

 of energetic action. 



Carbon with hydrogen forms compounds which retain in- 

 flammability without any acid quality ; with oxygen it forms 

 first an inflammable oxide, and with a larger proportion a weak 

 acid. But, combined with both hydrogen and oxygen, in dif- 

 ferent proportions, it forms in the vegetable acids compounds 

 having a high acidity. These acids, therefore, are not to be re- 

 garded, according to the theory of Lavoisier, as composed of a 

 compound base of carbon and hydrogen, acidified by oxygen, 

 but of a simple base, carbon, acidified by the joint action of 

 oxygen and hydrogen. 



Muriatic acid itself presents the same result. Oxymuriatic 

 acid must be considered, according to this doctrine, as a com- 

 pound of an unknown radical, (Murion y if the term may be al- 

 lowed), with oxygen, analogous in this respect to sulphurous 

 acid, except that in the latter there is an excess of base, in the 

 former an excess of oxygen : And oxymuriatic acid, with the 

 addition of hydrogen, forms the ternary compound muriatic 

 acid, as sulphurous acid with the same addition forms hydro- 

 sulphuric acid, with a deposition of the excess of sulphur. There 

 is, accordingly, the strictest analogy between muriatic acid and 

 those other acids, the sulphuric, nitric, &c. which contain both 

 oxygen and hydrogen ; while there is none, as Berzelius re- 

 marked, between it and those, such as the prussic acid or sul- 

 phuretted hydrogen, which contain merely hydrogen. This prin- 

 ciple solves the difficulty which has always presented itself in 

 the relation of muriatic and oxymuriatic acids on Lavoisier's 

 theory of acidity, — that the latter, though it has received an 

 addition of oxygen, is inferior in acid power to the former. 

 It is so precisely as the binary sulphurous acid is one of less 

 energy of action than the ternary hydro-sulphuric acid, or as 

 the carbonic is less powerful than the oxalic acid. The pro- 

 per 



