XVII. New experiments on some of the combinations of phosphorus

Abstract

In a paper published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, for 1812, I have detailed a number of experiments on phosphorus, from which I deduced the composition of some of its compounds with oxygen, with hydrogen, and with chlorine. Since the appearance of this paper, various researches have been brought forward on the same subject, in which some results, differing very much from each other, and from mine, are stated. I ventured to conclude that the phosphoric acid contained double the quantity of oxygen to that in the phosphorous acid; and that phosphoric acid contained about 3/5 of its weight of oxygen. M. Berzelius considers the oxygen in phosphoric acid to be 128.17, and M. Dulong, 124.5, the phosphorus being 100. M. Dulong and M. Berzelius suppose the quantity of oxygen in phosphorous acid to be to that in phosphoric acid as 3 to 5. The motive which immediately induced me to resume the enquiry respecting the phosphoric combinations, was M. Dulong's paper. This ingenious chemist has not only endeavoured to establish new proportions in the known compounds of phosphorus, but has likewise attempted to prove the existence of two new acids of phosphorus; and has denied several facts which I considered as sufficiently established.