An effort to refute the arguments advanced in favour of the existence in the amphide salts, of radicals : consisting, like cyanogen, of more than one element / by Robert Hare.

  • Hare, Robert, 1781-1858.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An effort to refute the arguments advanced in favour of the existence in the amphide salts, of radicals : consisting, like cyanogen, of more than one element / by Robert Hare. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    this view, I cannot perceive any difficulty in accounting for the evolution of hydrogen, as suggested in the quotation above made (6), agreeably to which, when diluted sulphuric acid reacts with zinc or iron, the liberation of hydrogen results from the superiority of the forces which tend to insert either of these metals in the place occupied by the hydrogen, over those which tend to retain it in statu quo. 8. When oxide of copper is presented to chlorohydric acid, it is inferred that the hydrogen unites with oxygen, and the chlorine with the metal; and hence it seems to be presumed, that when oxide of copper is combined with sulphuric acid, a similar play of affinities should ensue: but would it be reasonable to make this a ground for assuming the existence of a compound radical, when the phenomena admit of another explanation quite as simple and consistent with the laws of chemical affinity? 9. Whether hydrogen be replaced by zinc, or oxide of hydrogen by oxide of copper, cannot make any material difference. In the one case, a radical expels another radical, and takes its place; in the other, a base ex- pels another base, and takes its place. 10. There can be no difficulty, then, in understanding wherefore, from the compound of sulphur and three atoms of oxygen, and an atom of basic water, hydrogen should be expelled and replaced by zinc, or that water should be expelled and replaced by oxide of copper; the only mystery is in the fact, that SO3, as anhydrous sulphuric acid, will not combine with hydrogen, copper, or any other radical, unless oxydized. But this mystery equally exists on assuming that an additional atom of oxygen converts SO3 into oxysulphion, endowed with an energetic affinity for metallic radicals, to which SO3 is quite indifferent. 11. In either case an inexplicable mystery exists; but it is, in the one case, associated with an hypothetical change, in the other, with one which is known to take place. 12. But if hydrous sulphuric acid is to be assumed to be a hydruret of a compound halogen body (oxysulphion), because it evolves hydrogen on contact with zinc, wherefore is not water, which evolves hydrogen on con- tact with potassium, sodium, barium, strontium, or calcium, to be considered as a hydruret of oxygen, making oxygen a halogen body? 13. Boldly begging the question, Graham reasons thus: the chlorides themselves being salts, their compounds must be double salts.'''' 14. But if the chlorides are salts, the chloride of hydrogen is a salt; and if so, wherefore is not the oxide of hydrogen a salt, which, in its suscepti- bility of the crystalline form, has a salt attribute which the aeriform chlo- ride does not possess? 15. Further, if the oxide of hydrogen be a salt, every oxide is a salt, as well as every chloride. Now, controverting the argument above quoted, by analogous reasoning, it may be said, the oxides themselves being salts, their compounds are double salts. Of course sulphate of potash is not a sulphatoxide, as Graham's ingenious nomenclature would make it, but must be a double salt, since it consists of two oxides in themselves salts. 16. I trust that sufficient reasons have been adduced, to make it evident that the common result of the extrication of hydrogen, during the reaction of zinc or iron with sulphuric or chlorohydric acid, is not a competent ground for assuming that there are, in amphide salts, compound radicals play- ing the same part as halogen bodies. 17. Let us, in the next place, consider the argument in favour of the ex-