BY DR. HARE. 
203 
49. But if, without impairing the comparative preten- 
sions of the prevailing doctrine, we may appeal to the fact 
that the acquisition of an atom of oxygen confers upon a 
radical the basic power to hold one atom of acid, is it not 
consistent that the acquisition of two atoms of oxygen 
should confer the power to hold two atoms of acid, and that 
with each further acquisition of oxygen a further power to 
hold acids should be conferred? 
50. So far then there is in the old doctrine no more in- 
scrutability than in that which has been proposed as its 
successor. Since if on the one hand it be requisite that for 
each atom of oxygen in the base, there shall be an atom of 
acid in any salt which it may form, on the other, in the 
case of the three oxyphosphions, for each additional atom 
of hydrogen extraneous to the salt radical, there must be 
an atom of oxygen superadded to this radical. 
51. It being then admitted that, numerically, the atoms 
of acid in any oxysalt will be as the atoms of oxygen in the 
base, it must be evident that whenever an oxysalt of a prot- 
oxide is decomposed by a bioxide, there will have to be two 
atoms of the former for one of the latter. For the bioxide 
has two atoms of oxygen, and requires by the premises two 
atoms of acid, while the salt of the protoxide, having but 
one atom of oxygen, can hold, and yield, only one atom of 
acid. Two atoms of this salt, therefore, whether its base be 
water, or any other protoxide, will be decomposed by one 
atom of bioxide; provided the affinity of the acid for the 
bioxide predominate over that entertained for the protoxide, 
as when water is the base. 
52. It follows, that the displacement of water from its 
sulphate, adduced by Kane, does not favor the idea that 
hydrous sulphuric acid is an oxysulphionide of hydrogen, 
more than the impression that it is a sulphate of water. 
53. Of course, in the case of presenting either a sesqui- 
oxide, or a trioxide, to the last mentioned sulphate, in other 
