Note 49 — Chapter III · OXYGEN AND THE CHIEF ASPECTS OF ITS SALINE COMBINATIONS

It must be remarked that certain elements form oxides of all three kinds—i.e. indifferent, basic, and acid; for example, manganese forms manganous oxide, manganic oxide, peroxide of manganese, red oxide of manganese, and manganic anhydride, although some of them are not known in a free state but only in combination. The basic oxides contain less oxygen than the peroxides, and the peroxides less than the acid anhydrides. Thus they must be placed in the following general normal order with respect to the amount of oxygen entering into their composition—(1) basic oxides, suboxides, and oxides; (2) peroxides; (3) acid anhydrides. The majority of elements, however, do not give all three kinds of oxides, some giving only one degree of oxidation. It must further be remarked that there are oxides formed by the combination of acid anhydrides with basic oxides, or, in general, of oxides with oxides. For every oxide having a higher and a lower degree of oxidation, it might be said that the intermediate oxide was formed by the combination of the higher with the lower oxide. But this is not true in all cases—for instance, when the oxide under consideration forms a whole series of independent compounds—for oxides which are really formed by the combination of two other oxides do not give such independent compounds, but in many cases decompose into the higher and lower oxides.