70 Dr. Kane on the Compounds of Ammonia. 



These examples establish, in this case, the complete similarity of action of 

 hydrogen, whether combined with oxygen or amidogene. 



In the second part of the present memoir will be found a remarkable instance 

 of the replacement of water by ammonia. There was described a new chlor- 

 oxide of copper, GUcl-\-'2cuo:, this unites with water, forming a brown powder, 



cud -\- 2CMO + HO, 



evidently analogous to dry Brunswick green, 



cud -\- 2 CMo -|- cuo ; 



but it also unites with dry ammonia to form a brown powder, 



cud -\- 2 cuo -|- HA£? ; 



under which form the replacement of ho by cuo, and of both by hac?, is evidently 

 showrn. 



When once the principle of ammonia being considered as amidide of hydro- 

 gen, has been steadily brought before the mind, the nature of a vast class of 

 combinations, the functions of the ammonia in which had previously presented 

 great difficulty, is at once cleared up. Thus the combinations of ammonia with 

 the chlorides of tin, of antimony, of phosphorus, &c. are at once seen to resemble 

 those which many of the same bodies enter into with water, in equally definite 

 proportions ; thus snd^ + hac? is a white solid body, and snd^ -f ho is equally 

 white and solid. The compounds of the chlorides and oxysalts of the magnesian 

 class of metals present a parallelism still more close, and to which, after some 

 time, I shall again refer. 



A class of bodies, the nature of which has frequently given occasion to dis- 

 cussion, is the combinations of the oxygen acids with dry ammonia. Of these, 

 the most remarkable and the most accurately studied is that with sulphuric acid, 

 and I shall consider it in these observations as the type of the whole class. 



There are two opinions of the nature of this body, — first, that which vaguely 

 considering ammonia as a base per se, looks upon the existence of two classes of 

 ammoniacal salts, one merely of ammonia, the other of oxide of ammonium, as 

 possible, and enumerates this and other similar bodies in the former group ; 

 second, that which considers the sulphuric acid and ammonia as being mutually 



