Mr. Davy’s Researches on 
25a 
compounds with each other ; and should this be the case, 
the more refined analogies of chemical philosophy will be 
extended by these new, and as it would seem at first view, 
contradictory facts. For if, as I have said, oxymuriatic acid 
gas be referred to the same class of bodies as oxygene gas, 
then, as oxygene is not an acid, but forms acids by combining 
with certain inflammable bodies, so oxymuriatic acid, by 
uniting to similar substances, may be conceived to form either 
acids, which is the case when it combines with hydrogene, 
or compounds like acids or oxides, capable of forming neu- 
tral combinations, as in the instances of the oxymuriates of 
phosphorus and tin. 
Like oxygene, oxymuriatic acid is attracted by the positive 
surface in Voltaic combinations ; and on the hypothesis of 
the connection of chemical attraction with electrical powers, 
all its energies of combination correspond with those of a 
body supposed to be negative in a high degree. 
And in most of its compounds, except those containing 
the alkaline metals, which may be conceived in the highest 
degree positive, and the metals with which it forms insoluble 
compounds, it seems still to retain its negative character. 
I shall occupy the time of the Society for a few minutes 
longer only, for the purpose of detailing a few observations 
connected with the Bakerian lectures, delivered in the two 
last years ; particularly those parts of them relating to sulphur 
and phosphorus, which new and more minute enquiries have 
enabled me to correct or extend. 
I have already mentioned that there are considerable dif- 
ferences in the results of experiments, made on the action of 
potassium, on sulphur and phosphorus, and their combinations 
