Chemical method, notation, classification, & nomenclature / by Auguste Laurent ; translated by William Odling.

  • Auguste Laurent
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chemical method, notation, classification, & nomenclature / by Auguste Laurent ; translated by William Odling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/414
    If vve seek for the cause of this error, we shall find that it con- sists in the physical state of the body, and of its oxide, X itself being a gas, and its oxide being a very volatile liquid. In a word, by X we mean hydrogen. If we examine this question attentively, we shall see, that if hydrogen had been a comparatively fixed body, and its oxide fixed i ; and solid, no one would have thought of excluding it from the || i metals, but it would have been classed among the most electro- j h positive of them. And indeed chlorhydric acid for example, which Uiis placed, wre do not know why, at the head of the negative |(chlorides, so far from having any tendency to combine with the ibasylous chlorides, is never found united with other than a chlorous I (chloride; the fluorhydric acid is a basylous fluoride, which com- ; Ibines only with chlorous fluorides, in a manner precisely similar :tto that of fluoride of potassium. For some years past several chemists have considered corrcs- ijiponding salts and acids as bodies appertaining to one single type ; jltthus, for instance, sulphuric acid and sulphate of potash have been ] (formulated in this manner: IPO. SO3 K O.SO3 jkor in this: H2. SO' Iv. SO'. Dumas has even gone so far as to conceive, that if we could Jput condense hydrogen, it would present a metallic aspect. Nevertheless these chemists, although admitting the identity jpf type, have constantly separated the functions of acids and salts, or rather they have always divided compound bodies into three iorincipal classes : acids, fulfilling electronegative functions; bases, fulfilling electropositive functions; and salts, in which these two functions are neutralised. For my part I do not see any difference between acids (mean- ing thereby the salts of hydrogen) and ordinary salts; neither do recognise any difference between these two kinds of bodies, and he group of oxides in general. The distinctions that may be pointed out between acids, oxides, innd salts, are certainly not greater, but frequently much less, Iman those which exist between a potash, and a platinum salt, on U le one hand, and between a chloride and a carbonate, or between cyanide and a margarate on the other.
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