TEANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY, 



I. Researches on the Nature and Constitution of the Compounds of Ammonia. 

 By Robert Kane, M.D., M.R.I. A., Superintendent of the Laboratory 

 and Professor of Chemistry to the Apothecaries' Hall of Ireland ; Pro- 

 fessor of Natural Philosophy to the Royal Dublin Society. 



Read April 9th, May 14th, and May 28th, 1838. 



PART I. 



ON THE SULPHATES AND NITRATES OF MERCURY, PARTICULARLY THE SUBSALTS 



FORMED BY AMMONIA. 



Having shown in a former memoir that by the action of ammonia on the 

 chlorides of mercury, there came Into operation the principle which had been 

 found by Dumas and Llebig to regulate the constitution of so many interesting 

 bodies of organic origin, — that Is to say, that by the elimination of one equivalent 

 of hydrogen from the ammonia, and the union of the remaining hydrogen and 

 nitrogen with the metal, there was generated an amide, — it became of importance 

 to follow out into other combinations of the metallic salts with ammonia, an 

 investigation which had led, in the few cases already studied, to such novel and 

 Interesting results. It is Intended in the present memoir to investigate the func- 

 tions of the ammoniacal elements of the mercurial subsalts, a department, of 

 which, notwithstanding the labours of many chemists, our knowledge has re- 

 mained imperfect, from circumstances similar to those which had led, in the same 



VOL. XIX. B 



