BY DR. HARE. 
103 
(j) If one atom of oxygen confer upon the base into 
which it enters, the power to combine with one atom of 
acid, it is quite consistent that the affinity thus conferred 
should be augmented, proportionably, by a further accession 
of oxygen: — 
(k) It were quite as anomalous, mysterious, and impro- 
bable, that there should be three oxyphosphions, severally 
requiring for saturation one, two, and three atoms of hy- 
drogen, as that three isomeric states of phosphoric acid 
should exist, requiring as many different equivalents of basic 
water: — * 
(I) The attributes of acidity alleged to be due altogether 
to the presence of basic water, are not seen in hydrated 
acids, when holding water in that form only; nor in such 
as are, like the oily acids, incapable of uniting with water 
as a solvent. Further, these attributes are admitted to be- 
long to salts which, not holding water as a base, cannot be 
hydrurets or hydracids of any salt radical: and while such 
attributes are found in compounds which, like chromic, or 
carbonic acid, cannot be considered as hydrurets, they do 
not exist in all that merit this appellation, as is evident in 
the cases of prussic acid, or oil of bitter almonds: — 
(m) It seems to have escaped attention, that if SO 4 be 
the oxysulphion of sulphates, SO 3 , anhydrous sulphuric 
acid, must be the oxysulphion of the sulphites; and that 
there must, in the hyposulphites and hyposulphates, be two 
other oxysulphions! — 
(n) The electrolytic experiments of Daniell have been 
erroneously interpreted, since the electrolysis of the base of 
sulphate of soda would so cause the separation of sodium 
and oxygen, that the oxygen would be attracted to the 
anode, the hydrogen and soda being indirectly evolved by 
the reaction of sodium with water; while the acid, deprived 
of its alkaline base, would be found at the anode in combi- 
* See Kane's Chemistry. 
