Elements of Chemistry, / In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries

by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier

Table Of the Combinations of Oxygenated Muriatic Acid, with the Salifiable Bases, in the Order of Affinity.

Names of the Bases.	Names of the Neutral Salts by the new Nomenclature.
	Oxygenated muriat of
Barytes	barytes.
Potash	potash.
Soda	soda.
Lime	lime.
Magnesia	magnesia.
Argill	argill.
Oxyd of
zinc	zinc.
iron	iron.
manganese	manganese.
cobalt	cobalt.
nickel	nickel.
lead	lead.
tin	tin.
copper	copper.
bismuth	bismuth.
antimony	antimony.
arsenic	arsenic.
mercury	mercury.
silver	silver.
gold	gold.
platina	platina.

This order of salts, entirely unknown to the ancient chemists, was discovered in 1786 by Mr Berthollet.—A.

Sect. XIX.—Observations upon Muriatic and Oxygenated Muriatic Acids, and their Combinations.

Muriatic acid is very abundant in the mineral kingdom naturally combined with different salifiable bases, especially with soda, lime, and magnesia. In sea-water, and the water of several lakes, it is combined with these three bases, and in mines of rock-salt it is chiefly united to soda. This acid does not appear to have been hitherto decomposed in any chemical experiment; so that we have no idea whatever of the nature of its radical, and only conclude, from analogy with the other acids, that it contains oxygen as its acidifying principle. Mr Berthollet suspects the radical to be of a metallic nature; but, as Nature appears to form this acid daily, in inhabited places, by combining miasmata with aëriform fluids, this must necessarily suppose a metallic gas to exist in the atmosphere, which is certainly not impossible, but cannot be admitted without proof.

The muriatic acid has only a moderate adherence to the salifiable bases, and can readily be driven from its combination with these by sulphuric acid. Other acids, as the nitric, for instance, may answer the same purpose; but nitric acid being volatile, would mix, during distillation, with the muriatic. About one part of sulphuric acid is sufficient to decompose two parts of decrepitated sea-salt. This operation is performed in a tubulated retort, having Woulfe's apparatus, (Pl. IV. Fig. 1.), adapted to it. When all the junctures are properly lured, the sea-salt is put into the retort through the tube, the sulphuric acid is poured on, and the opening immediately closed with its ground crystal stopper. As the muriatic acid can only subsist in the gaseous form in the ordinary temperature, we could not condense it without the presence of water. Hence the use of the water with which the bottles in Woulfe's apparatus are half filled; the muriatic acid gas, driven off from the sea-salt in the retort, combines with the water, and forms what the old chemists called smoaking spirit of salt, or Glauber's spirit of sea-salt, which we now name muriatic acid.

The acid obtained by the above process is still capable of combining with a farther dose of oxygen, by being distilled from the oxyds of manganese, lead, or mercury, and the resulting acid, which we name oxygenated muriatic acid, can only, like the former, exist in the gasseous form, and is absorbed, in a much smaller quantity by water. When the impregnation of water with this gas is pushed beyond a certain point, the superabundant acid precipitates to the bottom of the vessels in a concrete form. Mr Berthollet has shown that this acid is capable of combining with a great number of the salifiable bases; the neutral salts which result from this union are susceptible of deflagrating with charcoal, and many of the metallic substances; these deflagrations are very violent and dangerous, owing to the great quantity of caloric which the oxygen carries alongst with it into the composition of oxygenated muriatic acid.

Table of the Combinations of Nitro-muriatic Acid with the Salifiable Bases, in the Order of Affinity, so far as is known.

Names of the Bases.		Names of the Neutral Salts.
Argill		Nitro-muriat of	argill.
Ammoniac			ammoniac.
Oxyd of
	antimony		antimony.
	silver		silver.
	arsenic		arsenic.
Barytes			barytes.
Oxyd of	bismuth		bismuth.
Lime			lime.
Oxyd of
	cobalt		cobalt.
	copper		copper.
	tin		tin.
	iron		iron.
Magnesia			magnesia.
Oxyd of
	manganese		manganese.
	mercury		mercury.
	molybdena		molybdena.
	nickel		nickel.
	gold		gold.
	platina		platina.
	lead		lead.
Potash			potash.
Soda			soda.
Oxyd of
	tungstein		tungstein.
	zinc		zinc.

Note.—Most of these combinations, especially those with the earths and alkalies, have been little examined, and we are yet to learn whether they form a mixed salt in which the compound radical remains combined, or if the two acids separate, to form two distinct neutral salts.—A.