AND ON SOME SUBJECTS OF CHEMICAL THEORY. 323 



small portion. The whole evidently depends on difference of 

 constitution. Sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and 

 carbonic acid, are binary compounds, and therefore yield no 

 water, nor retain any in intimate combination ; and in the 

 others, the proportion of water supposed to exist will be found 

 to have no relation to the attraction of the acid to water, so far 

 as this can be inferred, as is evident from the example of phos- 

 phoric acid affording as much as sulphuric or nitric ; but to the 

 relations of its elements, and more particularly of its oxygen, 

 to the radical. This last fact affords nearly a demonstration, that 

 the constitution is that of simultaneous combination of the ele- 

 ments, and not that of water and acid. 



That water may also exist in immediate combination with 

 acids, without being resolved into its elements, is sufficiently 

 possible ; and it probably is in this state, in those cases, in 

 which there are no indications of an intimate combination, or 

 definite proportion. It may then be considered as in solution 

 similar to that in which it holds salts dissolved, or, what is a 

 closer analogy, similar to that in which it holds dissolved the 

 vegetable acids, which are admitted to be ternary compounds 

 of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The opposite view applies 

 only to that portion of water considered as essential to the 

 body in an insulated state, and in which it is combined in a de- 

 finite proportion, observing in its relations, or the relations of 

 its elements, equivalent proportions to other bodies. 



In the last place, Considering this opinion in relation to the 

 two opposite views which have been maintained with regard to 

 the constitution of oxymuriatic and muriatic acids, while it has 

 all the evidence in its favour from which the existence of wa- 

 ter in muriatic acid gas is inferred, and all the analogies by 

 which this is confirmed ; it has the support which the doctrine 

 of the undecompounded nature of chlorine derives from the re- 



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