102 Mr. Davy’s Lecture on some new analytical Researches 
produced ; a circumstance that agrees with the indications 
given by the action of potassium.* 
1 attempted to procure a compound of dry muriatic and 
carbonic acids, hoping that it might be gaseous, and that the 
two acids might be decomposable at the same time by potas- 
sium. The process that I employed was by passing corrosive 
sublimate in vapour through charcoal ignited to whiteness ; 
but I obtained a very small quantity of gas, which seemed 
to be a mixture of common muriatic acid gas and carbonic 
acid gas ; a very minute portion of running mercury only 
was obtained, by a long continuation of the process ; and the 
slight decomposition that did take place, I am inclined to at- 
tribute to the production of water, by the action of the hy- 
drogene of the charcoal upon the oxygene of the oxide of 
mercury. “f* 
In mixing muriatic acid gas with carbonic acid, or oxygene, 
or hydrogene, the gases being in their common states, as to 
moisture, there was always a cloudiness produced ; doubtless 
owing to the attraction of their water to form liquid muriatic 
acid. 
On fluoric acid gas no such effect was occasioned. This fact, 
at first view, might be supposed to shew, that the hydrogene 
evolved by the action of potassium upon fluoric acid gas, is 
* Page 98. 
t These facts and the other facts of the same kind, explain the difficulty of the 
decomposition of the metallic muriates in common processes of metallurgy. They 
likewise explain other phenomena in the agencies of muriatic salts. In all cases 
when a muriatic salt is decomposed by an acid, ai d muriatic acid gas set free, there 
appears to be a double affinity, that of the acid for the basis, and of the muriatic acid 
for water ; pure muriatic acid does not seem capable of being displaced by any other 
acid. 
