for decomposing the Muriatic Acid. 201 



were such as, after mature deliberation, appeared to me most to 

 promise success ; and the experiments were attended with a 

 degree of labour, which can only be estimated by those who 

 have been engaged in similar pursuits ; not one third of those 

 which were really made having been described, in the foregoing 

 account of them. It may spare therefore to others, a fruitless 

 application of time and trouble, to be made acquainted with 

 what I have done ; and the collateral facts, which have pre- 

 sented themselves in the inquiry, are perhaps not without 

 curiosity or value. 



From the result of these experiments, I apprehend, all hope 

 must be relinquished, of effecting the decomposition of the 

 'muriatic acid, in the way of single elective affinity. They 

 furnish also a strong probability, that the basis of the muriatic 

 acid is some unknown body ; for, no combustible substance 

 with which we are acquainted, can retain oxygen, when sub- 

 mitted, in contact with charcoal, to the action of electricity, or 

 of a high temperature. The analysis of this acid must, in future, 

 be attempted with the aid of complicated affinities. Thus, in 

 the masterly experiment of Mr. Tennant, phosphorus, which 

 attracts oxygen less strongly than charcoal, by the intermedia- 

 tion of lime decomposes the carbonic acid. Yet, led by the 

 analogy of this fact, its discoverer found that a similar artifice 

 did not succeed in decomposing the muriatic acid. " As vital 

 " air/' he observes, " is attracted by a compound of phosphorus 

 te and calcareous earth, more powerfully than by charcoal, I was 

 " desirous of trying their efficacy upon those acids which may 

 •' from analogy be supposed to contain vita! air, but which are 

 " not affected by the application of charcoal. With this intention, 

 " I made phosphorus pass through a compound of marine acid 



MDCCC. D d 



