rts of decrepitated sea-salt. This
operation is performed in a tubulated retort, having Woulfe's apparatus,
(Pl. IV. Fig. 1.), adapted to it. When all the junctures are properly
lured, the sea-salt is put into the retort through the tube, the
sulphuric acid is poured on, and the opening immediately closed with its
ground crystal stopper. As the muriatic acid can only subsist in the
gaseous form in the ordinary temperature, we could not condense it
without the presence of water. Hence the use of the water with which the
bottles in Woulfe's apparatus are half filled; the muriatic acid gas,
driven off from the sea-salt in the retort, combines with the water, and
forms what the old chemists called _smoaking spirit of salt_, or
_Glauber's spirit of sea-salt_, which we now name _muriatic acid_.

The acid obtained by the above process is still capable of combining
with a farther dose of oxygen, by being distilled from the oxyds of
manganese, lead, or mercury, and the resulting acid, which we name
_oxygenated muriatic acid_, can only, like the former, exist in the
gasseous form, and is absorbed, in a much smaller quantity by water.
When the impregnation of water with this gas is pushed beyond a certain
point, the superabundant acid precipitates to the bottom of the vessels
in a concrete form. Mr Berthollet has shown that this acid is capable
of combining with a great number of the salifiable bases; the neutral
salts which result from this union are susceptible of deflagrating with
charcoal, and many of the metallic substances; these deflagrations are
very violent and dangerous, owing to the great quantity of caloric which
the oxygen carries alongst with it into the composition of oxygenated
muriatic acid.

TABLE _of the Combinations of Nitro-muriatic Acid with the Salifiable
Bases, in the Order of Affinity, so far as is known._

_Names of the Bases._ _Names of the Neutral Salts._

Argill Nitro-muriat of argill.
Ammoniac ammoniac.
Oxyd of
antimony antimony.
silver silver.
arsenic arsenic.
Barytes barytes.
Oxyd of
bismuth bismuth.
Lime lime.
Oxyd of
cobalt cobalt.
copper copper.
tin tin.
iron iron.
Magnesia magnesia.
Oxyd of
manganese manganese.