Dr. Kane on the Compounds of Ammonia. *lb 



These analogies are so remarkable, that any detailed comment on them is un- 

 necessary. 



Since the oxide of ammonium of Berzelius possesses a definite constitution 

 only in the salts of oxygen acids with which it may unite, the superior simplicity 

 and distinctness of the present view becomes still more remarkable in its case than 

 in the former. We have seen that in combination with oxides the amidide of 

 hydrogen or of the metals assumes, even in the simplest cases, very complicated 

 formulae ; thus, the 



Oxamidide of mercury is 



iig\d -j- 2 H^o -j- 3 HO. 



Oxamidide of copper is 



2 CMAcf -j- CMC 4" 6 HO. 



Oxamidide of gold is 



2 Kuxdy -{■ AMO3 -f- 6 HO. 



When, therefore, we come to examine the constitution of water of ammonia, a 

 similarly large number of molecules may be expected to be contained in its equi- 

 valent group, and in the fact of all the oxamidides above described, and also that 

 of silver, the analysis of which I was obliged to abandon, being the most dange- 

 rous and explosive bodies, we may trace the source of a facility of decomposition 

 in the oxamidides of hydrogen, which prevents us from obtaining even the degree 

 of definite constitution which has been found to exist in the hydrates of the 

 chloride of hydrogen, although the approximation in the strongest water of am- 

 monia to the formula nh3-|-4ho cannot be overlooked ; and therein also we 

 find the explanation of the want of success in obtaining, in an isolated form, the 

 oxide of ammonium, which has always been, and must continue, an objection to 

 the Berzelian theory. 



The transition from the view of the constitution of sal ammoniac just de- 

 scribed, to the corresponding theory of the salts with oxygen acids, is very simple, 

 and will not require much exposition. Giving to the oil of vitriol the formula 

 so^-|- H, it will at once result that hydrogen combinations of that form should as 

 easily unite with the amidide of hydrogen as with any of the corresponding 

 oxides; and hence the ordinary sulphate of ammonia becomes H.SO4-I- ha6?, the 

 nitrate of ammonia HNOg -J- HAof. In its common form the sulphate of ammonia 



L 2 



