212 Sir Humphry Davy’s experiments on a solid 
As I have called the compounds of oxygene, iodine, and 
bases, oxyiodes, I venture to propose a name in conformity, 
that of oxy iodine for the new solid compound, and oxyiodic 
acid, for the acid compound it forms with water. M. Gay 
Lussac, as I am informed, has proposed in a paper which I 
have not yet been so fortunate as to procure, but which is said 
to contain many new and important facts, the name of iodic 
acid for the compound of oxygene and iodine, the existence of 
which he conceived he had proved by his experiment on the 
action of sulphuric acid on the oxyiode of barium, and the 
terms iodats for the substances, consisting of oxygene, iodine, 
and bases. I am willing to pay every compliment to the saga- 
city of this ingenious chemist, in anticipating the knowledge 
of the nature of a body, the separate existence of which he 
had not demonstrated by experiment ; but the term iodic acid 
does not appear to me sufficiently definite. For the hydro- 
ionic acid, and the chlorionic acid, as well as the oxyiodic 
acid, may be all called as a class iodic acids, or acids from 
iodine, and the termination in at , would place the oxyiodes in 
the common class of neutral salts, from which they differ in 
many respects. When they become binary compounds in 
consequence of their decomposition by heat, though they lose 
all their oxygene, their neutral and saline character remains 
unaltered, which is not the case with any other known class 
of bodies, except the hyperoxymuriates ; and the terms 
iodes and oxyiodes which I proposed in the first paper, in 
which the distinction between these bodies was pointed out, 
sufficiently express the nature of the double and triple com- 
pound, and the difference between them. 
I am desirous of marking the acid character of oxyiodine 
