V. On super-acid and sub-acid salts

Abstract

In the paper which has just been read to the Society, Dr. Thomson has remarked, that oxalic acid unites to strontian as well as to potash in two different proportions, and that the quantity of acid combined with each of these bases in their super-oxalates, is just double of that which is saturated by the same quantity of base in their neutral compounds. As I had observed the same law to prevail in various other instances of super-acid and sub-acid salts, I thought it not unlikely that this law might obtain generally in such compounds, and it was my design to have pursued the subject with the hope of discovering the cause to which so regular a relation might be ascribed.