Pure nitric acid is colorless, with a specific gravity of 1.5, and boiling at 248 deg..

It is a most powerful oxidizing agent, and is decomposed with more or less rapidity, by almost all the metals, to which it yields a portion of its oxygen.
The nitric acid of commerce, is generally the article used by the Daguerreotypist.

This usually contains some chlorine and sulphuric acid.

It is obtained by the distillation of saltpetre with sulphuric acid.

It is employed in the Daguerreotype process for dissolving silver, preparing chloride or oxide, nitrate of silver, [the former used in galvanizing,] and in combination with muriatic acid for preparing chloride of gold, used in gilding.