Meanings of mercuric oxide in English

Or mercuric oxide, may be obtained either of a brick-red or orange-yellow colour.

The equation representing the decomposition of mercuric oxide is

Rather, mercuric oxide contains two elements that happen to form a gas and a metal when separate.

Hence, to find the weight of oxygen in 15 g. of mercuric oxide, we have the proportion

The relative weight of the mercuric oxide molecule must therefore be the sum of these, or 216.

The problem is to find out what weight of mercuric oxide will yield 20 g. of oxygen.

Again, suppose we wish to find what weight of oxygen can be obtained from 15 g. of mercuric oxide.

The molecule of mercuric oxide and the atom of oxygen which it contains have the ratio 216: 16.

This same ratio must therefore hold between the weight of any given quantity of mercuric oxide and that of the oxygen which it contains.

He realized a compound like mercuric oxide (an orange solid) doesn't somehow "contain" a gas, oxygen, and a liquid metal, mercury, as others believed.