The Bakerian Lecture. On some of the combinations of oxymuriatic gas and oxygen, and on the chemical relations of these principles, to inflammable bodies

Mr. Davy, having in his last communication to the Society expressed his belief that the substance called oxymuriatic acid gas has not yet been decompounded, but is simple, as far as our present knowledge extends, and having been confirmed in that opinion by subsequent experiments, endeavours, on the present occasion, to select such experiments as tend to illustrate more fully the nature, properties, and combinations of this substance with inflammable bodies, and compares its properties with those of oxygen, to which he considers it as bearing the closest analogy. When potassium is exposed to oxymuriatic gas, the intensity of their mutual attraction occasions spontaneous inflammation. Ten grains of potassium absorb about eleven inches of the gas; and they form a neutral compound, which is the same as muriate of potash which has been ignited. When this metal or sodium are burned in oxygen gas, the combustion is much less vivid, since their attractions for oxygen are feebler than for oxymuriatic gas; and the alkalies, potash, and soda, are formed in a state of extreme dryness; but under certain circumstances they are liable to combine with an excess of oxygen, and to become peroxides, as observed by Messrs. Gay-Lussac and Thenard.