Vitriolic acid

“ The distilled water impregnated with so small a quantity of vitriolic acid, having a more agreeable taste than when alone, and yet manifesting the presence of an acid by means of the syrup of violets; I subjected it to some other tests of acidity. It formed curds when agitated with soap, lathered with difficulty, and very imperfectly; but not the least ebullition could be discovered upon dropping in spirit of sal ammoniac, or solution of salt of tartar, though I had taken care to render the latter free from causticity by impregnating it with fixed air. ”

“ These earths are nearly insoluble in the vitriolic acid, and what part does unite with it, forms a selenitical salt, the most difficult of solution of all others, and of an astringent nature: whereas the Magnesia [d] united with the same acid, produces what is commonly called Epsom salt, easy of solution, and purgative to the bowels. The former, with the nitrous acid constitutes a calcareous nitre, incapable of crystallization; with the marine acid a calcareous muriatic salt ”

“ Take the Vitriolic Acid you intend to concentrate, that is, to dephlegmate and make stronger: pour it into a good glass retort, of such a size that your quantity of Acid may but half fill it: set this retort in the sand-bath of a re [Pg 177] verberating furnace: fit to it a receiver; lute it on, and give a gradual fire. There will come over into the receiver a clear liquor, the first drops of which will be but faintly acid: this is the most aqueous part.
When the drops begin to follow one another much more slowly, raise your fire, till the liquor begin to bubble a little in the middle. ”

“ Priestley’s unfortunate attachment to the doctrine of Phlogiston.
[61] Mr. Kirwan found that common inflammable air from iron, and vitriolic-acid, contained about 2-3 of its weight of water mixed with it; which might be separated from the air by means of concentrated vitriolic-acid in a watch glass over mercury, without diminishing the quantity or altering the characteristic properties of the air thus treated. ”

“ Oil of Vitriol, Vitriolic Acid. Qualities. Form, a thick liquid of an oily consistence, specific gravity 1·85; a fluid-ounce weighs a fraction of a grain more than fourteen drachms. Colour, none, but it acquires a brown tinge from the smallest 264portion of carbonaceous matter; mere exposure to the air is sufficient for this purpose, in consequence of the acid disorganizing and carbonating the vegetable and animal matter suspended in the atmosphere ”

“ It will not amalgamate with Mercury; and though by certain processes, particularly the addition of water and continued trituration, a sort of union between these two substances may be produced, yet it is but apparent and momentary; for, being left to themselves and undisturbed, they quickly disunite and separate [2] .
The vitriolic acid, assisted by heat, and even by distillation, dissolves Regulus of Antimony. The nitrous acid likewise attacks it: but the solution can by no art be made clear [Pg 64] and limpid: so that the Regulus is only calcined, in a manner, by this acid. ”

“ Weaken concentrated Oil of Vitriol by mixing with it an equal quantity of water. Into a matrass put the Zinc you intend to dissolve, first broken to small pieces. Pour on it six times its weight of the Vitriolic Acid, lowered as above directed, and set the matrass in a sand-bath gently heated. The Zinc will dissolve entirely, without any sediment. The Neutral Metallic Salt resulting from this dissolution shoots into crystals, which go by the name of White Vitriol, or Vitriol of Zinc. ”

“ The austere acids, as of vitriol, lemon-juice, juice of crabs and sloes, strengthen digestion, and prevent that propensity to sweat so usual to weak convalescents, and diminish the colliquative sweats in hectic fevers; all which are owing to their increasing the action of the external and internal cutaneous absorption. Hence vitriolic acid is given in the small-pox to prevent the too hasty or too copious eruption, which it effects, by increasing the cutaneous absorption. ”

“ Chap. 4th. On the origin of acid liquors, and the earthy part of Spirits of nitre. From p. 34, it appears that he knew nothing of the absorption and combination of his nitro-aereal particles in the vitriolic acid, during the combustion of sulphur, but explains the whole mechanically by the saline portion of the sulphur being broken down into minute pointed particles, by the violent attrition of the nitro-aereal particles, and so becoming fluid and sharpened. He seems too, not to know that the colcothar of martial vitriol is no component part of sulphur, p. ”

“ They must provide themselves with absolute indigo, by an expensive and troublesome process, not suited to the busy bleacher. The vitriolage, as the French term it, or the souring of the English bleacher, consists in immersing the goods for four hours in dilute sulphuric acid, containing one gallon of oil of vitriol to from 25 to 30 of water, thoroughly intermixed by stirring; for the density of the acid is an obstacle to its equal distribution through the water. This dilute acid will have a density of from 1·047 to 1·040, and will contain from 7 to 61⁄2 per cent. ”

“ We should have done the horrid thing at night and let it work while we all slept in the tents, but the chemist warned us not to dream of attempting it in anything like dusk or darkness. Each person has to be told off to stand ready in one room with their allowance of vitriol, and the prussic acid safely fastened up in a paper bag, tied at the mouth with a long piece of string, so that you can drop it into the vitriol and get away before the fumes suffocate you ”

“ When the alchemists became busy trying to extract the virtue out of all substances they produced several acids by distillation. These they called, for example, spirit of vitriol, spirit of nitre, spirit of salt, meaning our sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids respectively. They regarded everything obtained by distillation as a spirit. When the theorists came forward, Becher, Stahl, and their followers, they treated these acids as original constituents of the substances from which they were [324] obtained. Thus, when sulphur was burned phlogiston was set free, and acid remained. ”

“ A few ounces of blue vitriol are dissolved in boiling water, and when cold the solution is poured into the tumbler, and the porous cell to contain the mixture of eight parts water to one of sulphuric acid is made by rolling the brown paper three or four times round the ruler and closing the end, and fixing the side with a little sealing wax. The porous cell of brown paper is now filled with the dilute acid, and placed in the tumbler containing the solution of blue vitriol, the amalgamated zinc being arranged in the paper cell, and the attached seal in the copper solution ”

“ The strong, aqueous, hydrofluoric acid obtained by the action of oil of vitriol on fluor-spar, is a densely fuming, volatile, colourless liquid, which boils at 60° F., and remains unfrozen at 4°. It combines with water so greedily, and evolves so much heat in doing so, as to give rise to a hissing noise like that produced when a red-hot iron is plunged into cold water. ”

“ When powdered aloine is thrown, in small quantities at a time, into cold fuming nitric acid, it dissolves without evolving any nitrous fumes, and forms a brownish-red solution. On adding a large quantity of sulphuric acid, a yellow precipitate falls, which, when it is washed with water to remove all adhering acid and then dried, explodes when it is heated. ”

“ And, in a great variety of articles, very young persons may be made so far acquainted with everything necessary to be previously known as to engage (which they will do with peculiar alacrity) in pursuits truly original.”
In the course of some observations on the effect “of impregnating oil of vitriol with nitrous acid vapour” he discovered nitrosulphuric acid, the so-called “Leaden Chamber Crystals,” whose properties and behaviour with water he describes with accuracy and even eloquence. ”

“ Whenever the whole liquid is dissipated, the pipe d is to be re-adjusted, and the lid applied closely to c. The heat being now continued, and gradually increased, the whole nitric acid will be expelled from the copper oxide, which will remain in a black mass at the bottom of the alembic. The contrivance for letting water trickle upon the pebbles, must be carefully kept in play, otherwise much of the evolved acid would be dissipated in nitrous fumes. With due attention to the regenerative plan, a great part of the acid may be recovered, at no expense but that of a little fuel. ”

“ The action of strong oil of vitriol on cane sugar is very energetic. The sugar is instantly reduced to a black charred mass, whilst carbonic and formic acids are given off. The same effects are produced by exposing it to dry chlorine at a temperature of 212° F. By nitric acid of sp. gr. 1·25, cane sugar is converted into saccharic acid; if a stronger acid be employed, oxalic acid is produced. When a mixture of concentrated nitric and sulphuric acids is poured on to cane sugar, an explosive compound, resembling gun cotton, is produced. ”

“ This mineral being moistened and exposed to the air, a crust is formed upon it, which is afterwards dissolved in water; and from this the crystals of vitriol are obtained by evaporation.
140The principal use of vitriol is in dyeing woollen articles, hats, and other manufactures, black. It is the basis of ink, and is used in the manufacture of Prussian blue. If it be reduced to powder by the action of fire in a crucible, and mixed with powder of galls, it forms a dry portable ink. Sulphuric acid (24) may be obtained from this kind of vitriol by distillation. ”

“ In the German Ephemerides, the case of a person is described who had taken so much elixir of vitriol, that his keys were rusted in his pocket by the transudation of the acid through the pores of his skin ”

“ Chemical properties. Ether, alcohol, water, cold or boiling, have no action upon it; dilute hydrochloric, sulphuric and nitric acids, have no action when cold. Concentrated nitric acid, when cold, produces no effect upon it, but if heated to ebullition it attacks it actively, becoming of a brownish red color. Put in a glass tube closed by one only of its extremities, the other being furnished with two pieces of litmus paper, the one becomes blue, the other red. If the tube is placed in the flame of a spirit lamp, in a few instants the matter swells and the reddened paper becomes again blue. ”

“ A pearly white, inodorous powder, insoluble in water, but freely soluble in nitric acid; long exposure to a strong light turns it greyish. When prepared from a neutral solution, it consists of very fine microscopic crystalline laminæ; but when prepared from acid solutions, with less water, the crystals are acicular, and more silky and lustrous. When moistened it exhibits an acid reaction with litmus paper. ”

“ Or, instead of the above, the precipitate is at once washed in dilute nitric acid until its colour ceases to be improved by the process. The product is of the finest quality.
Prop. Insoluble in water and in dilute acids, except the oxalic, in solutions of which it dissolves freely when pure; oil of vitriol dissolves it to a white pasty mass, which is again precipitated of the usual blue colour by water; alkalies instantly decompose it, and so do red oxide of mercury and some other oxides when boiled with it; it burns in the air like tinder, leaving an ash of oxide of iron. It is not poisonous. ”

“ Sulphuric acid and sugar gives a different colour to that produced by commercial veratrine. There is first a green colour which darkens into olive green, then becomes dirty green, and finally dark brown. When warmed with strong sulphuric, hydrochloric, or phosphoric acids, there is a strong odour of isobutyric [392] acid developed. Dilute solutions of the salts are precipitated by ammonia, Nessler’s reagent, gold chloride, potassium mercury iodide, cadmium iodide, phosphotungstic acid, and picric acid; no precipitate is produced by tannin, platinum chloride, or mercuric chloride. ”

“ Since however it possesses peculiar chemical habitudes, it claims some notice in this work. The concentrated acid obtained from the decomposition of acetic salts, by the action of sulphuric 253acid, is pungent, acrid, and volatile, and when heated with free access of air, it takes fire very readily. Its solvent powers are much greater than those of distilled vinegar; it is capable of dissolving camphor, resins, and essential oils [340] copiously, but they are precipitated by dilution; it combines with alcohol, and forms a species of ether ”

“ No heat can extract from it any dephlogisticated air.
Though this is denominated a weaker acid than the nitrous, yet it will take silver, lead, or mercury, from their union with the nitrous acid. Upon this principle, a solution of these metals in the nitrous acid will readily discover whether any water contains the marine acid, the latter uniting with the metal dissolved in the former, and forming with it, if it be silver, a luna cornea; which [Pg 53] being a substance insoluble in water, discovers itself by a cloudy appearance. ”

“ Nitrate of lead offers no advantages over the acetate, and is generally more expensive to use. Free nitric acid is more objectionable than free acetic acid, because it may act as a solvent on chrome yellow and liberate free chromic acid, which is liable to “turn” the yellow. When using lead nitrate it is preferable to neutralise potassium bichromate with soda, to avoid the presence of free nitric acid. ”