THE 



LONDON and EDINBURGH 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



DECEMBER 1834. 



LVII. On Phosphuretted Hydrogen. By Thomas Graham, 

 F.R.S. Edin. 9 Anderson-tan Professor of Chemistry, and 

 Vice-President of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow.* 



"C^EW substances have been made the subject of experi- 

 -*- mental inquiry more frequently than the compounds of 

 phosphorus and hydrogen, and none are so remarkable for 

 the various and conflicting results which they have presented 

 to chemists of the greatest acuteness and practical skill. The 

 obscurity which long hung over the subject has been dis- 

 pelled, however, in a great measure, by the recent investiga- 

 tions of Henry Rose, of Berlin f. Although baffled in his early 

 inquiries, that philosopher returned again and again to the 

 subject, and at last succeeded in determining the chemical 

 functions and true constitution of phosphuretted hydrogen. 

 He has shown it to be analogous to ammonia in chemical 

 character and composition. But hitherto two compounds of 

 phosphorus and hydrogen had generally been admitted to 

 exist, which were believed to differ in composition as they do 

 in properties, one being spontaneously inflammable in atmo- 

 spheric air, and the other not so. Rose establishes beyond 

 all doubt that these gases are essentially of the same composi- 

 tion, and of the same specific gravity ; and, indeed, that they 

 are mutually convertible, each into the other, without any 



* Communicated by the Author. 



f An account of Rose's experiments on this subject, with a notice of Dr. 

 Dalton's anticipation of his views, will be found in Lond. and Edinb. Phil. 

 Mag. vol. iii. p. 308.— Edit. 



Third Series. Vol. 5. No. 30. Dec. 1834. 3 F 



