On a difficulty in isomorphism and in the received constitution of the oxygen-salts, in a letter to Professor Mitscherlich of the University of Berlin / from Thomas Clark.

Clark, Thomas

Date:: [1836]

Credit: On a difficulty in isomorphism and in the received constitution of the oxygen-salts, in a letter to Professor Mitscherlich of the University of Berlin / from Thomas Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

18/22 page 16

$Oil of Vitriol, regarded as a Hydrogen-acid (H^ S), acts on an oxide, it is not a simple combination that takes place, but a double decomposition, resulting in a neutral salt and water, precisely as takes place when Hydrochloric acid acts on oxides. While, therefore, on regarding Oxygen-salts as having metals for their bases instead of oxides, the anoma¬ lous aspect of such of them as are formed from oxides of high degrees of oxidation disappears, we do not need, in taking this view, to seek any new supposition to stand upon. Nor can it escape your observation, that, regarded in this view, all the oxygen is in a state of unity; whereas the former view presented it broken asunder, like a sphere, into two irregular parts, which, when examined apart, seemed neither of them thoroughly symmetrical, but which, being joined again, conceal all that before appeared irregular, at¬ testing at once the violence that had rent them asunder, and the unity of the artist’s design. Such unity of all the Oxygen in any neutral salt, is remark¬ ably confirmed by the action of the two Sulphates of Mer¬ cury on common Salt, in producing, by sublimation. Cor¬ rosive Sublimate and Calomel. The following diagrams in¬ dicate the actions— Materials. Common Salt, Persulphate of Mercury,^ Products. Hg Cl* Corrosive Subli¬ mate. Na S Sulphate of Soda. Common Salt,____ NaCl* ^ ^ Calomel. i JNa\ / .. (2Hg/\ Protosulphate of Mercury, Hg'^ S -s :: \ :: ( S -^ Na S Sulphate of Soda. These undeniable actions appear to me to demand evi¬ dence, such as never yet has been adduced, in proof of the usual explanation that, in undergoing mutual decomposi¬ tion by another neutral salt, every neutral Sulphate divides its own Oxygen so as to leave, with the metal it contained, one-fourth, while transferring, to the new Sulphate pro¬ duced, the remaining three-fourths. To avoid becoming unseasonably tedious by insisting on such details, I shall draw them to a close, trusting that enough has been stated to establish, that no Chemist is$