Am 
SECOND REPORT—1832. 
method may be used with great advantage in saturating alkalies 
or preparing the hyposulphites. 
Anhydrous sulphuric acid. —Prof. Mosander of Stockholm 
lias communicated to me the following very simple mode of 
preparing anhydrous sulphuric acid. If oxide of antimony 
be treated with excess of sulphuric acid till the oxide is satu¬ 
rated, and the excess of acid then driven off by a low tempe- 
••• ••• 
rature, the sulphate Sb+3 S is obtained dry and crystallized. 
If this dry salt be put into a retort and heated to dull redness, 
the greater part of the acid is driven off in an anhydrous state, 
and is easily condensed in a cool receiver. 
Deutoxide of chlorine .—Some chemists have thought that 
the oxide of chlorine obtained by decomposing chlorate of pot¬ 
ash under sulphuric acid by the method of Yon Stadion was 
different from that of Davy and Gay-Lussac. Soubeiran* finds 
that the gas of Stadion contains an admixture of oxygen which 
may be separated by passing the gas through water. The deut¬ 
oxide is absorbed, while the oxygen escapes. A gentle heat 
disengages the gas from the water, which by this means may 
be obtained pure. It consists of one volume chlorine + two 
volumes oxygen. 
On the other hand the same writer endeavours to show that 
the gasf prepared by Davy’s method with muriatic acid and 
chlorate of potash, and hitherto considered a protoxide of chlo¬ 
rine, is only a mixture of oxygen and deutoxide of chlorine. 
When this gas is absorbed by water, afterwards expelled from 
it by heat and caused to pass through mercury to absorb the 
excess of chlorine, a pure deutoxide is obtained of a similar 
composition to the above. Euchlorine as it is given off from 
the chlorate contains the two elements very nearly in the pro¬ 
portion of two volumes chlorine to one volume oxygen, and it 
does not appear from the experiments of Soubeiran that there 
may not have been a decomposition of the gas during his pro¬ 
cess for purifying it. Nor, should he be correct in regard to 
the identity of the two gases he examined, does it follow that 
there may not still be two gaseous oxides of chlorine. 
Chlorous acid .—The existence of a lower acid of chlorine 
(chlorous acid) in the bleaching compound prepared by means 
of this gas, and to the presence and easy decomposition of 
which the bleaching property is owing, is strongly maintained 
by some of the most eminent German chemists. In the bleach¬ 
ing compounds there are present chlorine, oxygen and a metal; 
* Annales de Chimie, tom. xlviii.p. 148. 
f Euchlorine. 
