CHEMICAL 1‘IIINCIPLHS. 
S69 
multiples by 2, 3, and 4, it follows that this suboxide should be Metiilhc ox* 
. ,-idc8, 3ic. 
the yninimiim, and should contain 3,05 parts oxigen foi 100 ot 
the metal. 
(c) Suloxulum ZincicHm. 
Zinc becomes covered in the air with a pellicle which is of 
a grey colour, hard, semirnetalHc, and of difficult solution with 
the acids. Its exterior considerably resembles the oxides of 
kalium and of natrium. This subo.xide is in other respects 
already too well known through the ex[)eriments with the 
electric pile, in which it has occasioned a good deal of difficulty 
in the cleaning the plates of zinc. I therefore deem it need- 
IJess to instance any experiments by way of proving its existence. 
The existence of the subo.xides of kalium and nutrium, 
having been proved by the experiments of Mr. Davy, Gay 
ILus.sac and Thenard, and it being also shewn, by the experi- 
iments which I have related, that only antimony, manganese, 
Ibismuth, lead, and zinc, have suboxides 
It is very probable that w'e shall in time discover .also the 
'suboxides of most of the metals. There is, however, one cir- 
Acumstance which I must not allow to pass unnoticed, and 
Vwhich, in the opinion of many of my readers, may throw a 
doubt over what I have just been saying; namely, that not 
Lonly Mr. Davy, but Messrs. G.ay Lussac and Thenard,’ have in 
jttheir latest writings endeavoured to prove, that the suboxides of 
I kalium and natrium, ought rather to be considered as mixtures 
jf those alkalies, each with its metallic radical. But as I have 
myself obtained these suboxides in a most decided form, I must, 
lotwithstanding the opinion of these celebrated chemists, still 
> maintain, that such a mixture of the alkali, with its radical, 
aannot be the same as with the suboxide. 
I am inclined to believe that copper, gold, platin.s, and mer- 
mry, have no suboxides, and that their oxida in osutn, have, in 
heir composition, a proportion relative to that of the above- 
mentioned suboxides. For these oxidules, if iremed in their 
E e 2 dry 
