10 Mr Herscliel on the Hyposulphurous Acid, 
account, then, and because the composition assigned there to the 
acid (though sufficiently probable a priori^ and correct in point 
of fact, as will soon appear), is supported by no experiment ad- 
duced, I may yet venture to hope, that the following experiments, 
imperfect as they are, being made in the absence of most of the 
conveniences for chemical research, may possess some novelty as 
well as interest. Even to have verified a knoivn fact, by indepen- 
dent observation, is something, as it gives an air of reality, and a 
body to science : but such is the nature of chemistry, that it is 
next to impossible to pursue an independent train of investiga- 
tion, without encountering some novelty worthy to be recorded. 
The Hyposulphurous Acid (which seems to me a better epithet 
than the Sulpho- Sulphurous, by which I had proposed originally 
to designate it,) not appearing capable of a separate existence, 
or, at least, not being procurable in that state in any quantity, 
or without great difficulty, its characters can only be ascertained 
by examining its combinations with bases. Some of the princi- 
pal of these are as follow. 
They are (with one or two exceptions) easily soluble in wa- 
ter, and their solutions have usually either an intensely bitter, 
or an- intensely sweet taste. 
When heated to a degree below redness, they are decom- 
posed ; and, while sulphur separates, a sulphite, or, in some in- 
stances, a sulphuret, of the base remains ; in which latter case, 
the sulphur separated is in the state of sulphurous acid. Hence 
they are for the most part inflammable in the open air. The 
action of nitric acid, or a stream of chlorine passed through 
their solutions, converts them into sulphates, separating, at the 
same time, a quantity of sulphur and free sulphuric acid. 
The hyposulphites and their solutions are decomposed by all 
the other acids except the carbonic (and perhaps one or two 
more of the less powerful ones), especially when heated with 
them. Sulphurous acid is disengaged (though not immediately), 
and sulphur precipitates. 
They precipitate lead from its solutions in a white powder, 
which is hyposulphite of lead. 
Oxy nitrate of silver, and nitrate of mercury, dropped in ex- 
cess into a dilute solution of any hyposulphite, precipitate their 
respective metals in the state of sulphurets. The phenomena of 
