Lecture Xiii.

Of the Vitriolic Acid.

The vitriolic acid, so called because it was originally procured from vitriol, is now generally procured from sulphur; the dephlogisticated part of the air uniting with it in the act of burning.

That dephlogisticated air is essential to this acid is evident from the decomposition of it; for if the vapour of it be made to pass through a red-hot earthen tube, a great quantity of dephlogisticated air is procured.

This acid has a strong affinity to water, with which it unites with much heat; and it is capable of greater concentration, or of being made specifically heavier, than any other acid. When pure, it is entirely free from colour and smell, owing, probably, to its being free from phlogiston, which is inseparable from the nitrous or marine acids.

The vitriolic acid will dislodge the nitrous, or marine, or any other acid, from their earthy or metallic bases; from which property it is called the strongest of all the acids.

By means of the superior affinity of the vitriolic acid to earths, and especially to terra ponderosa, the smallest quantity of it in water may be discovered by a solution of this earth in the marine acid. In this acid the terra ponderosa is held in perfect solution; but with the vitriolic acid it forms a substance that is insoluble in water, and therefore it instantly appears in the form of a white cloud.

Perhaps chiefly from the strong affinity which this acid has with water, pyrophorus, consisting of a mixture of alum and several substances containing phlogiston, takes fire spontaneously on exposure to the air. It is commonly made of three parts of alum and one of brown sugar, or of two parts alum, one of salt of tartar, and one of charcoal. They must be heated till they have for some time emitted a vapour that burns with a blue flame.

The saline substances produced by the union of this acid with the several earths and metals, are best exhibited in tables constructed for the purpose. When united to three of the metals, viz. iron, copper, and zinc, they are called vitriols, green, blue, and white. And all the substances which this acid unites with crystallize, and do not deliquesce.

This acid unites with oil, and the mixture is always black.

When any substance containing phlogiston is heated in the vitriolic acid, another species of the acid, called sulphureous, is formed, of a pungent smell. In reality, it is water impregnated with vitriolic acid air. It makes, however, a distinct species of acid, and is dislodged from its base by most of the others.

Of the Marine Acid.

The marine acid is procured from common salt by the vitriolic acid, which unites with its base, the fossil alkali.

This acid is generally of a straw-colour; but this is owing to an impregnation with some earthy matter, most of which it readily dissolves, especially the metallic ones. It is less capable of concentration than the vitriolic or nitrous acids, perhaps from a more intimate union of phlogiston with it. No heat can extract from it any dephlogisticated air.

Though this is denominated a weaker acid than the nitrous, yet it will take silver, lead, or mercury, from their union with the nitrous acid. Upon this principle, a solution of these metals in the nitrous acid will readily discover whether any water contains the marine acid, the latter uniting with the metal dissolved in the former, and forming with it, if it be silver, a luna cornea; which being a substance insoluble in water, discovers itself by a cloudy appearance.

The union of the marine acid with earths forms salts that easily deliquesce, but with the metals such as are capable of crystallization; and so also is that formed by the union of this acid to terra ponderosa.

Neither this acid nor the nitrous will dissolve gold or platina; but a mixture of them, called aqua regia, will do it.

The marine acid has a strong affinity to dephlogisticated air, and will take it from manganese and other substances; and with this union it becomes a different acid, called dephlogisticated marine acid, being water impregnated with dephlogisticated marine acid air, described above.