ON THE HYPOCHLORITES. 
313 
"Experience proves that potassa absorbs a quantity of chlo- 
rine double that which soda absorbs. Potassa should absorb 
four times as much; there is then an error in the theory or in 
the formula assigned to the peroxide of sodium. An analysis 
of this latter was then made, and it was, in fact, found that in 
the formula adopted, the oxygen had been stated too low, that 
the sodium united with two atoms of oxygen in place of one 
and a half, to become peroxide, and should be represented by 
NaO 2 . The potassa compound ought then, as is proved by 
experiment, to have double the decolorizing power of that of 
soda. The theory thus is found to be confirmed. 
" The bleaching compounds," pursues the author, " do not 
then constitute salts, but rather combinations corresponding to 
the peroxides, in which all the oxygen, which is added to the 
protoxide to form a higher oxide, is replaced by its equivalent 
of chlorine, and, by a singular turn of theory, the compounds, 
considered as mixtures of chlorides and hypochlorites, are 
really simple compounds; while the hypochlorites, considered 
as simple salts, and without mixture, are mixtures of peroxides 
and peculiar bodies corresponding to peroxides. 
"It is natural to presume that bromine, iodine, sulphur, 
and, perhaps, other metalloids, form analogous compounds, and 
on the other hand, that compounds of that nature which 
are formed by chlorine, and correspond to the higher oxides 
not suitable to form salts, as the peroxides of lead and bismuth, 
give rise, with hydrochloric acid, when the reaction takes 
place under the influence of a freezing mixture, to a new 
bleaching compound, formed of chlorine and hydrogen, which 
contains twice as much chlorine as hydrochloric acid. It is a 
bichloride of hydrogen, which, in the series of combinations 
of chlorine, is altogether analogous to the peroxide of hydro- 
gen. Oxygenated water, therefore, promised to become the 
type of numerous and parallel series which will expand con- 
siderably the field of mineral chemistry, without introducing 
any complication. P. A. C. 
Journ. de Pharm. 
VOL. V. NO. IV. 40 
