PROFESSOR DANIELL ON THE ELECTROLYSIS OF SECONDARY COMPOUNDS. 213 
sist of + 4 O ; the oxynitrion of the latter, of N -f 6 0. The oxysulphion of am- 
monium, or (S + 4 O) + (N + 4 H), would designate the sulphate of ammonia with 
one equivalent of water. 
The composition of words upon this principle is so extremely obvious, that I think 
I need not illustrate it further. I do not, of course, propose that the common desig- 
nation of salts should be in all cases altered, but only when it may be necessary to 
speak of them in their electrical relations ; and the termination ion will have the con- 
venience of immediately suggesting these relations. 
No one, I think, can be more alive than myself to the inconvenience of unnecessary 
alterations of nomenclature ; they constitute an evil of no slight consideration, and 
have lately been, in my humble judgement, too much indulged in by chemical phi- 
losophers ; but when it is sought to introduce new views and generalizations upon 
sufficient experimental evidence, they become absolutely necessary, and operate be- 
neficially in assisting the mind to break through the trammels of a train of thought 
which is invariably attached to old expressions. Suffer me to make a moderate use 
of this new nomenclature in what I have further to communicate. 
One of the principal objections to Davy’s theory of the salts has always been the 
impossibility of isolating, and preserving in a free state, the compounds of acids with 
the additional equivalent of oxygen which it supposed ; and in their electrolysis we 
find that the ions invariably evolve their oxygen at the zincode. It occurred to me 
that evidence of their isolation might be found in the beautiful experiments of 
M. Thenard*, which led to the discovery of oxygenated water. It will be remem- 
bered, in fact, that the first conclusion which that eminent philosopher drew from 
them was that the phenomena were due to such combinations of the acids with 
oxygen ; and it was only after a long course of further investigation that he rested in 
the opinion that the extra equivalent of oxygen was in all cases united to the water 
with which they were mixed. He at the same time allowed that the combination was 
greatly more permanent when any acid was present. I was in hopes that I might have 
obtained further evidence of the fact from an apparatus which I contrived for the pur- 
pose, but the results were not conclusive, and I shall not trouble you with the details. 
Experiment 26. — The apparatus consisted of a double diaphragm cell, one of the 
branches of which was placed in a vessel capable of holding a mixture of salt and 
pounded ice, by which it might be cooled to 0° Fahr. The cell was charged suc- 
cessively with dilute sulphuric acid, dilute phosphoric acid, and solution of sulphate 
of soda. The zincode was cooled by the freezing mixture, and in no instance was 
the oxygen evolved in proportion to the hydrogen at the platinode ; and in some 
cases the evolution appeared to be entirely arrested. The conducting power of the 
circuit, however, was very much lowered by the reduction of the temperature, and 
was finally destroyed by the formation of ice, so that no very striking result could 
be obtained. 
* Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tomes viii. ix. 
