heat. A mixture of oxygen and the vapour of the substance would not inflame by a strong electric spark, though the temperature was raised by a spirit-lamp to about 400°. When oxygen mixed with the vapour of the substance is passed through a red-hot tube, there is decomposition; and mixtures of chlorine, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid, and phosgene gases me produced. A portion of the chloride was heated with peroxide of mercury, in a glass tube over mercury; as soon as the oxide had given off oxygen, and the heat had risen so high as to soften the glass considerably, the vapour suddenly detonated with the oxygen with bright inflammation. The substances remaining were oxygen, carbonic acid, and calomel; and I believe there was no decomposition or action, until so much mercury had risen in vapour as to aid the oxygen by a kind of double affinity in decomposing the chloride of carbon.
Chlorine produces no change on the substance, either by exposure to light or heat.
When iodine is heated with it at low temperatures, the two substances melt and unite, and there is no further action.
When heated more strongly in vapour, the iodine separates chlorine, reducing the per chloride to the fluid protochloride of carbon, and chloriodine is produced. This dissolves, and if no excess of iodine be present, the whole remains fluid at common temperatures. When water is added, it generally liberates a little iodine; and on heating the solution, so as to drive off all free iodine, and testing by nitrate of silver, chloride and iodide of silver are obtained.
Hydrogen and the vapour of the substance would not inflame at the temperature of 400° Fahr. by strong electrical sparks; but when the mixture was sent through a red-hot tube, the chloride was decomposed, and muriatic acid gas and charcoal produced.
The vapour of the per chloride of carbon readily detonates by the electric spark with a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gases; but the gaseous results are very mixed and uncertain, from the near equipoise of affinities that exists among the elements.
Sulphur readily unites to it when melted with it, and the mixture crystallizes on cooling into a yellowish mass. When heated more strongly, the substance rises unchanged, and
