muriatic Acid in its different States. 249 
Three bodies, two of which are permanent gases, and the 
other of which is considerably volatile, form in this instance, a 
substance neither fusible nor volatile, at a white heat. It could 
not have been expected that ammonia would remain fixed at 
such a temperature ; but that it should remain fixed in com- 
bination with oxymuriatic acid, would have appeared incre- 
dible, according to all the existing analogies of chemistrj^ 
The experiments on which these conclusions are founded, 
are, however, uniform in their results : and it is easy to re- 
peat them. They seem to shew, that the common chemical 
proposition, that complexity of composition is uniformly con- 
nected with facility of decomposition, is not well founded. 
The compound of oxymuriatic acid, phosphorus, and am- 
monia, resembles an oxide, such as silex, or that of colum- 
bium in its general chemical characters, and is as refractory 
when treated by common re-agents ; and except by the effects 
of combustion, or the agency of fused potash, its nature could 
not be detected by any of the usual methods of analysis. Is 
it not likely, reasoning from these circumstances, that many 
of the substances, now supposed to be elementary, may be 
reduced into simpler forms of matter ? And that an intense 
attraction, and an equilibrium of attraction, may give to a 
compound, containing several constituents, that refractory 
character, which is generally attributed to unity of constitution, 
or to the homogeneous nature of its pails ? 
Besides the compound of the phosphoric sublimate and 
ammonia, and the other analogous compounds which have 
been referred to, it is probable that other compounds of like 
nature may be formed of the oxides, alkalies, and earths, 
with the oxymuriatic combinations, or of the oxymuriatic 
