Warren Francis A., Millar John D., Massoth Franklin E., Hensel William E., Raben Irwin A. Chlorates and Perchlorates their Manufacture, Properties and Uses. Volume I

A Bureau of Naval Weapons Publication, 1960. — 751 p.The early experimental studies leading to the discovery of the chlorates and perchlorates were closely tied to the discovery and identity of the. element chlorine. According to Partington(4 ), Glauber in 1648 heated moist salt in a charcoal furnace and obtained a strongly acid "spirit of salt" by condensing the resulting fumes. Later (in 1658) Glauber wrote in his De Natura Salium of having made spirit of salt by condensing the vapors obtained from the reaction of sulfuric acid on salt. This concentrated solution was called "spiritus salis Glauberi" by Boerhaave in his Elementa Chemiae (1732). Priestley found in 1772 that the gas produced from the reaction of sulfuric acid and salt could be collected over mercury. He deduced that it was a permanent gas. The solution of this gas was then Glauber's spirit of salt or the marine acid as it was then called. This later
became muriatic acid (from muria, the Latin for brine).