Muriate oxygene

When Davy allowed oxymuriatic acid gas (chlorine) to react with moist sulfur, he obtained hydrogen chloride and oxygen. When he repeated the experiment, using Sicilian sulfur dried over calcium chloride, no oxygen gas was evolved and not a cubical inch of muriatic [hydrochloric] acid. . . and it was found that between 16 and 17 cubical inches of oxymuriatic acid gas [chlorine] had disappeared the whole of the sulfur was sublimed in the gas, and the liquor formed was of a tawny-orange colour [probably sulfur monochloride] (30). 

In the year 1807 Sir Humphry Davy obtained hydrogen by the action of potassium on muriatic acid, and concluded that it must have come from the water in the acid, and that the oxygen in the water must have converted the potassium to potassium oxide (5). Gay-Lussac and Thenard, however, did not accept the explanation. They argued that the hydrogen came neither from the acid nor from the water, but from... 

L.-J. Gay-Lussac and L.-J. Thenard believed (1) that muriatic gas contains one-fourth of its weight of water, (2) that oxymuriatic gas is a compound of oxygen and some other substance, and (3) that the substance obtained by heating calomel with phosphorus is a triple compound... 

Thenard, On the nature and properties of muriatic acid and of oxygenated, muriatic acid. ... 

He then cites the sulfurous and sulfuric acids, as differing in the amount of oxygen they contain, with no combination lying between them the muriatic acid and the oxymuriatic acid [chlorine] similarly exhibit different degrees of saturation with oxygen. But... 

On August 10th-, 1801, W. Cruickshank1 noticed the gradual combination of oxygenated muriatic acid (i.e. chlorine) with hydrogen, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide. He said —... 

For a long time chlorine was considered to be compound in nature. Berzelius, too, believed this and disagreed with Davy, who considered it an element. Davy s illuminating experiments later convinced the Swede that chlorine was not oxymuriatic acid, an oxygen compound of hydrochloric acid, but a simple elementary gas. When Anna, his housekeeper, complained that a dish she was cleaning smelled of oxymuriatic add, Berzelius now corrected her Listen, Anna, you must not say oxidized muriatic acid any more. Say chlorine, it is better. ... 

Le Grand, H. E. Ideas on the Composition of Muriatic Acid and Their Relevance to the Oxygen Theory of Acidity. Annals of Science 31, 1974, 213-225. 

In 1800, W. Henryk passed electric sparks through muriatic acid gas and obtained a little hydrogen which he supposed to come from the moisture in the gas ou sparking a mixture of oxygen and muriatic acid gas he obtained a little oxymuriatic acid gas which he supposed was formed by the electric sparks decomposing some of the moisture in the muriatic acid gas into oxygen, and the union of the oxygen with the muriatic acid gas to form oxymuriatic acid gas. The experiments... 

---