BLEACHING COMPOUNDS OF CHLORINE. 299 
former employed an alkaline chloride, the latter a neutral 
chloride. 
The solution of chlorites with excess of chlorous acid, be- 
come after a certain time acid, and contain free chloric acid, 
the result of the decomposition of the free chlorous acid, which 
in the presence of water is converted into chlorine and chloric 
acid. 
The neutral chlorites in solution, are partially decomposed 
by carbonic acid; which shows the feeble affinity of chlorous 
acid for bases. The decomposition however, is never com- 
plete, even when the gas is passed into a solution of chlorite 
of lime. The solution soon becomes coloured by free chlo- 
rous acid, which may be driven off by continuing the stream 
of gas a sufficient length of time; the acid being expelled, the 
solution loses its colour; after which carbonic acid has no ac- 
tion on it; the presence of undecomposed chlorite in the liquid, 
is easily proved by the addition of sulphuric acid, when a large 
quantity of acid is given off. It is probable then, that car- 
bonic acid merely converts the neutral into alkaline chlorites, 
or into carbonato-chlorites. 
The neutral chlorites bleach; in common with chlorine and 
the chlorides of oxides, their oxidizing power is great, con- 
verting sulphuret of lead instantaneously into sulphate of lead. 
When distilled at the temperature of their boiling points, they 
give off a little chlorous acid, and leave as residue a mixture of 
chlorate and chloride containing free alkali; owing, probably, 
to the escape of chlorous acid, or which may have existed in 
the liquid, although it could not be detected by litmus paper 
in the bleaching solution of chlorite. 
A mixture of chlorite and chloride in solution, gives off 
chlorous acid when decomposed by an acid, which distin- 
guishes it from the chlorides of oxides — which, under the 
same circumstances, give off chlorine; the latter are not, then, 
as was supposed, mixtures of chlorites and chlorides. 
III. Of the Hypochlorites. 
The hypochlorites discovered by Balard, bleach and oxi- 
dize like the chlorites; when neutral, they possess little sta- 
