Combinations of different Metals and Chlorine . 191 
decomposed by muriatic acid, the slight precipitate of hydro- 
sulphuret produced was added to the first portion, and the 
whole was well washed, dried, and heated to redness in a 
glass tube; the sulphuret of bismuth thus obtained, fused into 
one mass, weighed 44.7 grains. I had previously ascertained 
the proportion of metal in this sulphuret, and found it to be 
81.8 per cent. 44.7 grains of sulphuret, or 55 grains of the 
butter, must therefore contain 36.5 grains of bismuth ; and 
hence, 100 of bismuth appear to consist of 
33 .6 chlorine 
66 4 bismuth 
100.0 
The butter of bismuth may be called bismuthane. 
Among the preceding combinations of the metals and chlo- 
rine, there is a surprising difference in respect to volatility 
and fusibility. Iron and manganese, two difficultly fusible 
metals, form with chlorine readily fusible compounds, and a 
combination of the former metal and chlorine is even volatile ; 
the compounds of tin and chlorine, and of chlorine and anti- 
mony, are very volatile substances, though the metals them- 
selves are fixed at very high temperatures ; on the contrary, 
the combinations of chlorine with bismuth, zinc, and lead, do 
not exceed in fusibility; indeed are not quite so fusible as the 
metals themselves. I can offer no explanation of these phe- 
nomena. 
Another singularity attending the liquid fuming compounds 
of chlorine, such as the L quor of Libavius, the fuming liquor 
of arsenic, and the oxymuriats of sulphur and phosphorus, is, 
that they do not become solid at low temperatures. I have 
