C 2 3i 3 
XIV. Researches on the oxymuriatic Acid, its Nature and Combi- 
nations ; and on the Elements of the muriatic Acid. JVith some 
Experiments on Sulphur and Phosphorus , made in the Laboratory 
of the Royal Institution * By H. Davy, Esq. Sec. R.S. Prof 
Chem.R.L F.R.S.E . 
Read July is, 1810. 
The illustrious discoverer of the oxymuriatic acid considered 
it as muriatic acid freed from hydrogene ,-f* and the common 
muriatic acid as a compound of hydrogene and oxymuriatic 
acid ; and on this theory he denominated oxymuriatic acid 
dephlogisticated muriatic acid. 
M. Berthollet, J a few years after the discovery of Scheele, 
made a number of important and curious experiments on this 
body ; from which he concluded, that it was composed of 
muriatic acid gas and oxygene ; and this idea for nearly twenty 
years has been almost universally adopted. 
Dr. Henry, in an elaborate series of experiments, made with 
the view of decomposing muriatic acid gas, ascertained that 
hydrogene was produced from it, by electricity ; and he attri- 
buted the phasnomenon to water contained in the gas.|J 
In the Bakerian lecture for 1808 , 1 have given an account of 
the action of potassium upon muriatic acid gas, by which more 
than one third of its volume of hydrogene is produced ; and 
1 have stated, that muriatic acid can in no instance be procured 
* Communicated to the Royal Society at the request of the Managers of the Royal. 
Institution. f Mem. Acad. Stockholm for 1774, p. 94. 
% Journal de Physique, 1785, p. 325. || Phil. Trans, for 1800, p. 191. 
H h 9 
