200 Mr. Henry's Account of Experiments 



watery portion is decomposed. The hydrogen of the water, 

 uniting with the electric matter, constitutes hydrogenous gas, 

 and the oxygen unites with the muriatic acid; which last, acting 

 on the mercury, composes muriate of mercury. 



3. The electric fluid serves "as an intermedium, in combining 

 oxygen with muriatic acid. 



4. The really acid portion of muriatic gas does not sustain 

 any decomposition by the action of electricity. 



5. When electric shocks are passed through a mixture of 

 carbonated hydrogen and muriatic acid gases, the water held 

 in solution by these gases, is decomposed by the carbon of the 

 compound inflammable gas ; and carbonic acid and hydrogenous 

 gases are the result. 



6. When all the water of the two gases has been decomposed, 

 no effect ensues from continuing the electrization ; or, if the 

 water of each gas has been previously destroyed, by electrifying 

 them separately, no further effect ensues from electrifying them 

 conjointly. 



7. Since therefore carbon, though placed under the most 

 favourable circumstances for abstracting from the muriatic acid, 

 and combining with, its oxygen, evinces no such tendency, it 

 may be inferred, that if the muriatic acid be an oxygenated 

 substance, its radical has a stronger affinity for oxygen than 

 charcoal possesses. 



Though the first impressions excited in my mind by the total 

 failure of the above experiments, in accomplishing one of the 

 greatest objects of modern chemistry, have induced me for some 

 time to withhold them from the society, I am satisfied by reflec- 

 tion, that this communication is not without expediency. The 

 means employed in attempting the analysis of the muriatic acid, 



