REFUTATION OF THE SALT RADICAL THEORY. 101 
ART. XX. — AN EFFORT TO REFUTE THE ARGUMENTS 
ADVANCED IN FAVOR OF THE EXISTENCE, IN THE 
AMPHIDE SALTS,* OF RADICALS, CONSISTING, LIKE 
CYANOGEN, OF MORE THAN ONE ELEMENT. 
BY ROBERT HARE, M.D. 
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. 
The following is a Summary of the Opinions which 
it is the Object of the subsequent Reasoning to Jus- 
tify- 
(a) The community of effect, as respects the extrication 
of hydrogen by contact of certain metals with aqueous solu- 
tions of sulphuric and chlorohydric acid, is not an adequate 
ground for an inferred analogy of composition, since it must 
inevitably arise that any radical will, from any compound, 
displace any other radical, when the forces favoring its sub- 
stitution preponderate over the quiescent affinities. 
(b) But if, nevertheless, it be held that the evolution of 
hydrogen from any combination, by contact with a metal, 
is a sufficient proof of the existence of a halogent body, 
simple or compound, in the combination, the evolution of 
hydrogen from water, by the contact with any metal of the 
alkalies, must prove-oxygen to be a halogen body; also the 
evolution of hydrogen from sulphydric, selenhydric, or tel- 
luhydric acids, by similar means, would justify an inference 
* An amphide salt is one consisting of an acid and a base, each con- 
taining an amphigen body, either oxygen, sulphur, selenium, or tellu- 
rium, as its electro-negative ingredient. 
f The epithet halogen is applied to bodies whose binary compounds 
with metals are deemed salts, and which are consequently called haloid 
salts. 
