The elementary nature of chlorine : papers / by Humphry Davy.

  • Davy Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829.
Date:
1894
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The elementary nature of chlorine : papers / by Humphry Davy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    73/86 (page 73)
    An Account of some new Experiments on the fluoric Compounds; with, some Observations on other Objects of Chemical Inquiry.'^ Read February 13, 1814. ***** I have made many new experiments with the hope of decomposing chlorine, but they have been all un- availing ; nor have I been able to gain the sHghtest evidence of the existence of that oxygen which many persons still assert to be one of its elements. I kept sulphuret of lead for some time in fusion in chlorine, the results were sulphurane (Dr. Thomson's liquor) and plumbane (muriate of lead); not an atom of sulphate of lead was formed in the experiment, though if any oxygen had been present, this substance might have been expected to have been produced. I heated plumbane (muriate of lead) in sulphurous acid gas, and likewise in carbonic acid gas, but no change was produced; now, if oxygen had existed either in chlorine, or in its combination with lead, there is every reason to believe, that the attractions of the substances concerned in these experiments would have been such as to have produced the insoluble and fixed salts of lead, the sul- phate in the first case, and the carbonate in the second. I shall not enter into any discussion upon the experi- *[Froin Philosophical Transactions for 1814, vol. 104, pp. 62- 73. Part reprinted, pp. 68-72].