i6o Mr. Davy on a Combination 
is owing to the circumstance of water having been used for 
receiving the products from hyperoxymuriate of potash, and 
unless the water is highly saturated with the explosive gas, 
nothing but oxymuriatic gas is obtained ; or to the circum- 
stance of too dense an acid having been employed. 
This substance produces the phenomena which Mr. 
Chenevix, in his able paper on oxymuriatic acid, referred to 
the hyperoxygenised muriatic acid ; and they prove the truth 
of his ideas respecting the possible existence of a compound 
of oxymuriatic gas, and oxygene in a separate state. 
The explosions produced in attempts to procure the pro- 
ducts of hyperoxymuriate of potash by acids are evidently 
owing to the decomposition of this new and extraordinary 
substance. 
All the conclusions which I have ventured to make re- 
specting the undecompounded nature of oxymuriatic gas, 
are, I conceive, entirely confirmed by these new facts. 
If oxymuriatic gas contained oxygene, it is not easy to 
conceive, why oxygene should be afforded by this new 
compound to muriatic gas, which must already contain oxy- 
gene in intimate union. Though on the idea of muriatic acid 
being a compound of hydrogene and oxymuriatic gas, the 
phenomena are such as might be expected. 
If the power of bodies to burn in oxymuriatic gas depended 
upon the presence of oxygene, they all ought to burn with 
much more energy in the new compound ; but copper a 5 d 
antimony, and mercury, and arsenic, and iron, and sulphur 
have no action upon it, till it is decomposed ; and they act 
then according to their relative attractions on the oxygene, 
or on the oxymuriatic gas. 
There is a simple experiment which illustrates this idea ; 
