180 Mr. J. Davy’s Account of some Experiments on the 
M. Proust, to whom w 7 e are indebted for very excellent 
investigations of the different combinations of copper and tin, 
first discovered a submuriat of tin. He found that a solution 
of potash precipitated from the solution of muriat of tin this 
compound, and not the pure gray oxide of tin. 
I have obtained it by his method, and all its properties 
which I have observed, are perfectly agreeable to its supposed 
composition. 
It is decomposed by a red heat. Subjected to distillation in 
a small bent glass tube connected with mercury, no gas w r as 
produced, w 7 ater containing muriatic acid and muriat of tin 
was expelled, and a sublimate like stannane was formed, and 
the fixed residue was gray oxide of tin. 
It effervesces violently with nitric acid ; and strong sulphu- 
ric acid expels from it muriatic acid fumes. 
It dissolves without effervescence in the muriatic and acetic 
and in the dilute, nitric, and sulphuric acids ; and all these acid 
solutions, as they give a black precipitate with a solution of 
corrosive sublimate, appear to contain the tin in the state of 
gray oxide. 
The complete analysis of this submuriat of tin is difficult. 
The oxide it contains cannot be accurately separated by potash, 
nor can nitrat of silver be employed to ascertain the propor- 
tion of muriatic acid. 
I have found 50 grains of it, dissolved in muriatic acid, to 
afford, when precipitated by zinc, 31 grains of metallic tin. 
Now as this submuriat is similar to the submuriat of copper, the 
analogy being imperfect only in the latter containing the per- 
oxide, and the former the protoxide, it is natural to infer that 
the proportion of muriatic acid is similar in both. But the 
