are procured. There can be little doubt that these names will be laid
aside when our knowledge of these substances becomes more accurate and
extensive; the terms _hydro-carbonous_, _hydro-carbonic_,
_carbono-hydrous_, and _carbono hydric_[38], will then become
substituted for those we now employ, which will then only remain as
testimonies of the imperfect state in which this part of chemistry was
transmitted to us by our predecessors.
It is evident that the oils, being composed of hydrogen and charcoal
combined, are true carbono-hydrous or hydro-carbonous radicals; and,
indeed, by adding oxygen, they are convertible into vegetable oxyds and
acids, according to their degrees of oxygenation. We cannot, however,
affirm that oils enter in their entire state into the composition of
vegetable oxyds and acids; it is possible that they previously lose a
part either of their hydrogen or charcoal, and that the remaining
ingredients no longer exist in the proportions necessary to constitute
oils. We still require farther experiments to elucidate these points.
Properly speaking, we are only acquainted with one compound radical from
the mineral kingdom, the nitro-muriatic, which is formed by the
combination of azote with the muriatic radical. The other compound
mineral acids have been much less attended to, from their producing less
striking phenomena.
SECT. III.--_Observations upon the Combinations of Light and Caloric
with different Substances._
I have not constructed any table of the combinations of light and
caloric with the various simple and compound substances, because our
conceptions of the nature of these combinations are not hitherto
sufficiently accurate. We know, in general, that all bodies in nature
are imbued, surrounded, and penetrated in every way with caloric, which
fills up every interval left between their particles; that, in certain
cases, caloric becomes fixed in bodies, so as to constitute a part even
of their solid substance, though it more frequently acts upon them with
a repulsive force, from which, or from its accumulation in bodies to a
greater or lesser degree, the transformation of solids into fluids, and
of fluids to aeriform elasticity, is entirely owing. We have employed
the generic name _gas_ to indicate this aeriform state of bodies
131