Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/358

324 for palladium that possesses little power of acting on platina, so that by digesting any quantity of the second metallic precipitate till there appeared to be no farther action, I procured a solution from which by due evaporation were formed crystals of a triple salt, consisting of palladium combined with muriatic acid and potash. These are the crystals which I have on a former occasion mentioned as exhibiting a very singular contrast of colours, being bright green when seen transversely, but red in the direction of their axis; the general aspect, however, of large crystals is dark brown.

From the salt thus formed and purified by a second crystallization, the metal may be precipitated nearly pure by iron or by zinc, or it may be rendered so by subsequent digestion in muriatic add.

From the consideration of this salt alone I thought it highly probable that the substance combined in it with murate of potash was a simple metal, for I know of no instance in chemistry of a distinctly crystallized salt containing more than two bases combined with one acid. I nevertheless endeavoured by a suitable course of experiments to obviate all probable objections. After examining by what acids it might be dissolved and by what reagents it might be precipitated, I combined it with various metals, with platina, with gold, with silver, with copper, and with lead; and when I had recovered it from its alloys so formed, I ascertained that, after every mode of trial it still retained its characteristic properties, being soluble in nitrous acid, and precipitable from thence by mercury, by green