164 Mr. Chenevix's Observations and Experiments 
place, in the order of affinities for metallic oxides, after many of 
those acids which it can expel from earths and alkalis. 
The other hyperoxygenized muriates, I have not yet suffi- 
ciently examined. I shall, however, mention at present, that I 
have ascertained the muriatic salts, formerly known by the 
strange name of butters of the metals , to be muriates, and not 
hyperoxygenized muriates; and the extraordinary proportion 
of oxygen, to be combined, not in the acid, but in the metallic 
oxide. 
In the course of different experiments, I have known hyper- 
oxygenized muriatic acid to be formed in two cases, where I 
could not have expected it. 
In the analysis of some menachanite from Botany Bay, given 
to me last year by the President of the Royal Society, I observed, 
that while the oxide of titanium was precipitated from the 
muriatic acid in which it was dissolved, the excess of oxygen in 
the oxide passed over to the muriatic acid and the potash, 
already in the liquor, and that hyperoxygenized muriate of 
potash was formed. I have attempted the same experiment with 
black oxide of manganese, but could not succeed. 
There is, however, a still more extraordinary formation of this 
acid, in the distillation of nitro-muriatic acid upon platiiia. Oxy- 
gen is absorbed by the metal ; yet, not only oxygenized, but also 
hyperoxygenized muriatic acid is formed. I have repeated the 
experiment several times ; and am well convinced of the fact, 
however contrary to theory it may appear. I have tried the 
action of oxygenized muriatic acid upon nitric acid, in the hopes 
of forming hyperoxygenized muriatic acid; but there was no 
action to this effect among their elements. 
The fact of the production of a peculiar gas, by the distilk- 
