Page:Experimental researches in electricity.djvu/146

120 of a true protochloride consisting of single proportionals (430, 531).

426. Periodide of mercury being examined in the same manner, was found most distinctly to insulate whilst solid, but conduct when fluid, according to the law of liquido-conduction (138); but there was no appearance of decomposition. No iodine appeared at the anode, nor mercury or other substance at the cathode. The case is, therefore, no exception to the rule, that only compounds of single proportionals are decomposable; but it is an exception, and I think the only one, to the statement, that all bodies subject to the law of liquido-conduction are decomposable. I incline, however, to believe, that a portion of protiodide of mercury is retained dissolved in the periodide, and that to its slow decomposition the feeble conducting power is due. Periodide would be formed, as a secondary result, at the anode; and the mercury at the cathode would also form, as a secondary result, protiodide. Both these bodies would mingle with the fluid mass, and thus no final separation appear, notwithstanding the continued decomposition.

427. When perchloride of mercury was subjected to the voltaic current, it did not conduct in the solid state, but it did conduct when fluid. I think, also, that in the latter case it was decomposed; but there are many interfering circumstances which require examination before a positive conclusion can be drawn.

428. When the ordinary protoxide of antimony is subjected to the voltaic current in a fused state, it also is decomposed, although the effect from other causes soon ceases (138, 536). This oxide consists of one proportional of antimony and one and a half of oxygen, and is therefore an exception to the general law assumed. But in working with this oxide and the chloride, I observed facts which lead me to doubt whether the compounds usually called the protoxide and the protochloride do not often contain other compounds, consisting of single proportions, which are the true proto compounds, and which, in the case of the oxide, might give rise to the decomposition above described.

429. The ordinary sulphuret of antimony is considered as being the compound with the smallest quantity of sulphur, and analogous in its proportions to the ordinary protoxide. But I find that if it be fused with metallic antimony, a new sulphuret is formed, containing much more of the metal than the former, and separating distinctly, when fused, both from the pure metal on the one hand, and the ordinary grey sulphuret on the other. In some rough experiments, the metal thus taken up