BY DR. HARE. 
109 
wherefore, from the compound of sulphur and three atoms 
of oxygen, and an atom of basic water, hydrogen should be 
expelled and replaced by zinc, or that water should be ex- 
pelled and replaced by oxide of copper; the only mystery 
is in the fact, that SO 3 , as anhydrous sulphuric acid, will 
not combine with hydrogen, copper, or any other radical, 
unless oxydized. But this mystery equally exists on .as- 
suming that an additional atom of oxygen converts SO 3 into 
oxysulphion, endowed with an energetic affinity for metallic 
radicals, to which SO 3 is quite indifferent. 
11. In either case an inexplicable mystery exists; but it 
is, in the one case, associated with an hypothetical change, 
in the other, with one which is known to take place. 
12. But if hydrous sulphuric acid is to be assumed to be 
a hydruret of a compound halogen body (oxysulphion,) be- 
cause it evolves hydrogen on contact with zinc, wherefore 
is not water, which evolves hydrogen on contact with po- 
tassium, sodium, barium, strontium, or calcium, to be con- 
sidered as a hydruret of oxygen, making oxygen a halogen 
body? 
13. Boldly begging the question, Graham reasons thus: 
" the chlorides themselves being salts, their compounds 
must he double salts." 
14. But if the chlorides are salts, the chloride of hydrogen 
is a salt; and if so, wherefore is not the oxide of hydrogen 
a salt, which, in its susceptibility of the crystalline form, 
has a salt attribute which the aeriform chloride does not 
possess? 
15. Further, if the oxide of hydrogen be a salt, every 
oxide is a salt, as well as every chloride. Now, controvert- 
ing the argument above quoted, by analogous reasoning, if 
may be said, " the oxides themselves being salts, their 
compounds arc double salts " Of course sulphate of pot- 
ash is not a sulphatoxide, as Graham's ingenious nomen 
clature would make it, but must be a double salt, since if 
consists of two oxides in "themselves salts." 
