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acid. But the greater part of the liquid re-mained unchanged after the absorption of theoxygen. In some days however it graduallyacquired the smell of muriated sulphur.

Some of the liquid was passed in vapourthrough fused muriat of silver at a low red heat,but no change whatever appeared to take placein either substance. 'Hence they infer that theliquid contained no hydrogen, since if it had, themuriat of stiver would have been decomposed,the hydrogen would have formed water withthe oxygen of the muriat, and this would haveunited with a portion of the muriatic acid, andexpelled it in the form of muriatic acid gas,with production of sulphuret of silver.

Various metallic oxyds, such as red oxyd ofiron, oxyd of manganese, and oxyd of tin wereignited, and caused to receive in that state thevapour of the liquid, which was thus entirelydecomposed, the metallic oxyds being converted:to sulphurets, and the gasses acquiring a strongsmell of sulphureous acid, but in none of thesecases was any water produced.

From all these experiments, these chemistsconclude that the carburetted sulphur containsno hydrogen.

The presence of carbon was the next pointto be ascertained. For this purpose the gasseousresidue of the combustion of the vapour of theliquid with oxygen gas was put in contact withwater, and most of it absorbed, giving the waterthe taste and smell of sulphureous acid. Limewater absorbed part of the remainder, producingcarbonate of lime ; and the unabsorbed portionwas detonated with fresh oxygen, and then pro-duced a second precipitate with lime-water.This latter portion therefore was a gas thatwanted more oxygen to become carbonic acid,or Carbonic Oxyd, and the two other portionswere carbonic acid and sulphureous acid gas.

In attempting to fix the proportions of sul-phur and carbon in this singular liquid, veryconsiderable difficulties occurred, owing to itsextreme volatility, and the imperfect actionwhich the common modes of decompositionappeared to produce.

The method that succeeded the best was thefollowing. A coated glass tube was laid in asloping direction,, through a small furnace ; tothe upper end of the tube a small glass capsulecontaining some of the liquid was hermeticallysealed; and to the lower, was fixed another■small glass tube expanded in the middle andfcent at the further end to convey any gas to themercuriai trough. The larger tube, which waslaid across the furnace, was filled with red oxyd

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of iron coarsely pulverized, and the bulbous ex-pansion of the lower tube was kept surroundedwith ice and salt. The larger tube being madered-hot, and the upper capsule containing aweighed quantity of the liquid carburetted sul-phur, the latter was heated very gently by a lampplaced near (but not beneath) it, and its vapourwas made td pass slowly through, the red-hotoxyd of iron. The process was so gradual, thatit required six hours and a half to volatilize anddecompose about 15 grains of the oil. Someprevious trials had failed from hastening theprocess.

In this way the decomposition was so perfectthat not a particle of the liquid sulphuret wascondensed at the lower end of the apparatus,but the oxyd of iron (weighing ten times theliquid used) was partly converted to sulphuretof iron, having a yellow colour and a brilliantmetallic lustre. This sulphuret was dissolved(and we presume totally oxygenated) by nitro-muriatic acid, the oxyd of iron separated byammonia, and the sulphuric acid generated fromthe sulphur was combined with barytes byadding muriatic acid and muriat of barytes, andthe sulphat of barytes washed, ignited andweighetl. The mixed gas produced in the pro-cess was exposed for about an hour tit the actionof a small quantity of brown oxyd of lead en-closed in a capsu’e, and passed up through themercury into the jar containing the gas. Bythis means all the sulphureous acid was ab-sorbed, after which the carbonic acid was takenup by dry fcaustic potash, and no other residuewas left than a little common air of the vessels.

In the above analysis therefore the sulphuroriginally contained in the liquid sulphuret ofcarbon was procured partly in the form of sulphatof barytes, and partly as sulphureous acid gas.The carbon also was obtained in the form of car-bonic acid gas, and the sulphur and carbon addedtogetherasnearly equalled the weight of the liquiddecomposed as can be ever expected in experi-ments of this kind. The carbon weighs 15.7per cent, of the liquid, and the sulphur 84.8.0.

The data of these computations assumed byProfessor Berzelius are, that 100. parts byweight of carbonic acid contain 27. of carbon :that 100 parts of sulphat of barytes contain13.66 of sulphur, and that 100 parts of sul-phureous acid gas contain 51 of sulphur.

Professor Berzelius proceeds to shew howclosely this analysis coincides with the law ofthe combination of combustible bases, which hehas laid down in his valuable and elaborate re-searches (for which see the article Affinity in