i86 Mr. J. Davy’s Account of some Experiments on the 
50 chlorine 
50 zinc 
100 
This compound may be called zincane. 
A compound of chlorine and arsenic has been long known, 
bearing the name of the fuming liquor of arsenic. It may be 
formed in several ways ; by the combustion of arsenic in chlo- 
rine gas, by heating in a retort a mixture of arsenic and cor- 
rosive sublimate, or of arsenic and calomel, and by the distil- 
lation of rauriat of arsenic with concentrated sulphuric acid. 
The old method by means of corrosive sublimate appears best 
adapted for procuring it in a pure state. About 6 parts of 
corrosive sublimate to 1 of arsenic are, I find, proper propor- 
tions. The mixture of the two substances should be intimate, 
and the heat applied to the retort for the distillation of the 
fuming liquor, gentle. When the liquor was not colourless 
at first, I have purified it by a second distillation. 
The fuming liquor of arsenic, it is well known, is decom- 
posed by water. The precipitate produced appears to be 
merely white oxide of arsenic, for, independent of other cir- 
cumstances, it does not afford the fuming liquor when heated 
with strong sulphuric acid. 
The fuming liquor, when gently heated, dissolves phospho- 
rus, but it retains on cooling only a very small portion of this 
substance. The warm solution is not luminous in the dark. 
The fuming liquor also, when warm, readily dissolves sul- 
phur ; indeed sulphur fused in the liquor seems capable of 
combining or of mixing with it in all proportions ; but on cool- 
ing the greatest part of the sulphur is deposited, and assumes 
