on the Muriatic and Oxymunaiic Acids . 24,1 
causes might, perhaps, contribute to diminish, in some degree, 
the proportion of the former. It was difficult to exclude from 
the apparatus, on admitting the muriatic acid gas into it, two 
or three very minute globules of mercury, which became tar- 
nished during the experiment, exactly as they would have 
been by oxymuriatic acid ; and a small portion of the latter 
gas was probably also taken up by the water employed to 
absorb the muriatic acid. 
With the intention of giving greater effect to the electricity,. 
I repeated the experiment in a vessel capable of containing 
not more than 1400 grains of quicksilver (about .4,1 of a cubic 
inch), the neck of which, being only i of an inch in diameter, 
was better calculated to shew any minute change in the vo- 
lume of the gas. On removing the stopper, however, no 
change of volume was apparent. The hydrogen evolved, in- 
stead of being more than in the former experiment, equalled 
in bulk only 20 grains of mercury. The production of oxy- 
muriatic acid was sufficiently evinced by its effect in tarnishing 
some very small globules of quicksilver, which adhered to the 
inside of the vessel ; but the minuteness of the quantity frus- 
trated an attempt to measure it. From subsequent experi- 
ments on similar quantities of gas, confined in the same appa- 
ratus, it appeared that the electrization in this last instance 
had been continued much longer than was necessary; and 
that an equal effect was produced by £ the number of electrical 
discharges. 
In this way of making the experiment, the greatest propor- 
tion of hydrogen gas obtainable from muriatic acid amounted 
only to about y_th, while, by electrization over quicksilver, 
~ or was generally evolved. It was evident, then, that 
