332 EXPERIMENTS ON THE RELATION 



client essential to its constitution ; and to acknowledge that 

 chlorine consists of a base united to oxygen, or is in fact oxy- 

 genated muriatic acid, as Lavoisier and Bertiiollet taught, and 

 as the whole chemical world believed, till their faith was late- 

 ly shaken or subverted, by the predominating genius of Sir 

 Humphry Davy. 



With the view of deciding the above important controversy, 

 I performed the following experiments. 



Of sal ammoniac, kept for some time in a platina capsule at 

 a subliming heat, to remove every particle of adhering mois- 

 ture, a known quantity was put into a glass tube, and made to 

 jdide down to the one end, which had been hermetically sealed. 

 Over it a given weight of bright metallic laminae, cut into slen- 

 der segments, was lightly pressed. The salt occupied in gene- 

 ral about one inch of the tube ; the laminae four or five inches. 

 Silver, copper, and turnings of iron made with a dry tool, were 

 employed in successive experiments. The open extremity of 

 the tube was drawn out to a point, and recurved, so as to pass 

 under a vessel inverted on the mercurial pneumatic trough. 

 Between this and the portion containing the metal, there was 

 a length of six or more inches of tube, which was kept cool. 

 In one variation of the experiment, a tube of Reaumur's por- 

 celain was used for containing the materials, to which was 

 firmly luted by a collar of caoutchouc, a glass tube, with a 

 little globe blown in its middle, and its loose end plunged, as 

 usual, into the mercurial trough. 



When tubes of crystal glass were employed, the part con- 

 taining the materials was lodged in a semicylindrical case of 

 iron, which traversed a small charcoal furnace, five or six 

 inches in diameter. The metallic laminae being raised to full 

 ignition in day-light, the case and tube were slightly moved 



forward, 



