57 
Dr. de Crell on the Decomposition, &c. 
Numerous have been the experiments made by chemists, who 
supposed they had formed this salt by composition : some 
described experiments, which they declared to have succeeded 
with them, though they always failed, when attempted by 
others;* from which, Leonhardi concludes, that nothing more 
can be expected from any similar attempts to produce sedative 
salt.-f 
I was surprised that these chemists had never (so far as I 
knew) examined the subject by the way of analysis, and endea- 
voured to decompose the sedative salt already formed by nature. 
Indeed, no great hopes of success could be entertained, as daily 
experience shows, that though this salt be kept fluid, in the hot- 
test fire, for many hours together, till it becomes a vitrified sub- 
stance, yet, when it is afterwards dissolved in distilled water, the 
solution is complete, without any residuum, and it then shoots 
into crystals of precisely the same salt as before. Notwith- 
standing all this, when I reflected, that borax is generated 
only in certain climates of the East, and that its acid is found 
only in particular substances and situations, as has been already 
mentioned, I could not but suppose the latter to be the pro- 
duce of a new formation. This being premised, I considered 
maturely in what manner the decomposition of this new and 
extraordinary compound might be attempted. Admitting the 
composition to be formed by the coalition of a number of diffe- 
rent substances, it seemed not improbable but that an acid, pe- 
netrating into and dissolving the whole mass, would rather 
* See Fuchs Geschichte des Bor axis. 
f Macquer’s Dictionary, translated by Leonhardi, 2d edit. Vol. V. p, 588. 
MDCCXC1X. I 
