Account of a series of experiments, undertaken with the view of decomposing the muriatic acid / [William Henry].

  • Henry, William, 1774-1836
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of a series of experiments, undertaken with the view of decomposing the muriatic acid / [William Henry]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    watery portion is decomposed. The hydrogen of the water, uniting with the electric matter, constitutes hydrogenous gas, and the oxygen unites with the muriatic acid; which last, acting on the mercury, composes muriate of mercury. 3. The electric fluid serves as an intermedium, in combining oxygen with muriatic acid. 4. The really acid portion of muriatic gas does not sustain any decomposition by the action of electricity. 5. When electric shocks are passed through a mixture of carbonated hydrogen and muriatic acid gases, the water held in solution by these gases, is decomposed by the carbon of the compound inflammable gas; and carbonic acid and hydrogenous gases are the result. 6. When all the water of the two gases has been decomposed, no effect ensues from continuing the electrization; or, if the water of each gas has been previously destroyed, by electrifying them separately, no further effect ensues from electrifying them conjointly. 7. Since therefore carbon, though placed under the most favourable circumstances for abstracting from the muriatic acid, and combining with, its oxygen, evinces no such tendency, it may be inferred, that if the muriatic acid be an oxygenated substance, its radical has a stronger affinity for oxygen than charcoal possesses. Though the first impressions excited in my mind by the total failure of the above experiments, in accomplishing one of the greatest objects of modern chemistry, have induced me for some time to withhold them from the society, I am satisfied by reflec¬ tion, that this communication is not without expediency. The means employed in attempting the analysis of the muriatic acid.