264 
ON AQUA REGIA. 
however, being formed, by the influence of a dehydrogenating 
action of these acids, the oxide produced by the oxidating ac- 
tion of the same .agents, it may easily be conceived, that if the 
reaction is longer continued, or made to work more energeti- 
cally, the radical may simultaneously be changed, and oxides 
formed, containing a larger amount of oxygen than those pre- 
viously produced. M. Laurent has, indeed, observed, that if 
the acid solution of the nitrite of oxide of naphthyl is allowed 
to boil until an oily body separates, a combination is formed, 
which the French chemist designates by the name of nitro- 
naphthaleTse, which, however, is more properly called nitrite 
of oxide of naphthalein (azolite naphthaleisique) considering 
the formula (C 40 H 24 O 5 +5N) which probably expresses its 
combination. If naphthalin, and nitric acid are boiled together, 
for four or five days, the above combination is converted into 
nitronaphthalese, or into the combination (C 2n H 10 O 3 -f-3N,) 
which in the manner of that just quoted contains as many 
equivalents of acid as are equivalents of oxygen contained in 
the base. The fresh salt, therefore, is the nitrite "of oxide of 
naphthalin. 
The combinations in question, instead of being composed of 
an oxybase and nitric acid, contain, as the electro-negative 
constituent that of the three oxyacids of nitrogen, which is the 
least endowed with the power of oxidating, an energetically 
oxidating body being unable to expel the nitrous acid from its 
combination without changing the radical of the base.* 
After this change, however, has once taken place, the nitric 
acid acts more intensely ; the fresh radical is invariably more 
stable than the foregoing one (25,) it may form with oxygen 
a more stable base, and the oxide thus produced may combine 
* It is with these salts, as with the compound kinds of ether, they 
cannot be brought under the law of Bertholet, because the nitric acid 
employed to expel the nitrous acid from its combinations, must act 
with an energy calculated to decompose the radical either wholly or 
partially. The discovery of the cause of this anomaly is indisputably 
one of the most important which in organic chemistry ever could have 
been made. 
