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[1] 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.
§ V. Reasons for thinking Palladium a simple Metal.
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
- ↑ Phil. Trans. 1804, p. 428.
