152 Dr. Young's Account of a numerical Table 
have been investigated, we may form two corresponding 
tables, one of the sequences of the bases with the acids, and 
another of those of the acids with the different bases ; and if 
either or both of the tables are imperfect, their deficiencies 
may often be supplied, and their errors corrected, by a re- 
peated comparison with each other. 
In forming tables of this kind from the cases collected by 
Fourcroy, I have been obliged to reject some facts, which 
were evidently contradictory to others, and these I have not 
thought it necessary to mention ; a few, which are positively 
related, and which are only inconsistent with the principle of 
numerical representation, I have mentioned in notes ; but many 
others, which have been stated as merely probable, I have 
omitted without any notice. In the table of simple elective at- 
tractions, I have retained the usual order of the different sub- 
stances ; inserting again in parentheses such of them as require 
to be transposed, in order to avoid inconsequences in the simple 
attractions : I have attached to each combination marked with 
an asterisc the number deduced from the double decomposi- 
tions, as expressive of its attractive force ; and where the 
number is inconsistent with the corrected order of the simple 
elective attractions, I have also inclosed it in a parenthesis. 
Such an apparent inconsistency may perhaps in some cases be 
unavoidable, as it is possible that the different proportions of 
the masses concerned, in the operations of simple and com- 
pound decomposition, may sometimes cause a real difference 
in the comparative magnitude of the attractive forces. Those 
numbers, to which no asterisc is affixed, are merely inserted 
by interpolation, and they can only be so far employed for de- 
termining the mutual actions of the salts to which they belong, 
