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XVIII. On the Theoretical Constitution of the Compounds of 

 Ammonia. By ROBERT KANE, M.D., M.R.LA. 



IN the course of the investigations to which I have subjected 

 the various classes of compounds that ammonia is ca- 

 pable of forming, it has been my lot to submit to the consider- 

 ation of chemists a great number of theoretical views to which 

 I had been led by my experimental results, and by which I 

 conceived that the mutual connexion of the different classes of 

 ammoniacal compounds could be explained, and their origin 

 and properties accounted for more satisfactorily than it was 

 possible to do by means of the ideas that had been previously 

 received in science. In advancing this new theory of the na- 

 ture of ammonia and its compounds, I was not so sanguine 

 as to expect that our ideas of a department of chemistry so 

 complex and so important could be immediately or easily mo- 

 dified, or that the adoption of my views could take place with- 

 out much conflicting reasoning and discussion. In this respect 

 I have had cause to be very much gratified. All principles 

 that can be considered as really vital to my theory have been 

 adopted by the most eminent chemical philosophers, and in 

 place of being dissatisfied that in the collateral parts of the 

 theory some portions have been thought not positively proved, 

 and which have hence been criticized and left for the time 

 aside by Graham and by Rose, I was at once surprised and 

 pleased to see how little had appeared in the eyes of these 

 acute-minded chemists unfit for being at once adopted into 

 science. 



I believe, however, that even in those portions of the theory 

 to which Graham and Rose have not acceded, some of the dif- 

 ficulties arise from a want of clearness and detail in the de- 

 scription of my views, into which error I fell from being too 

 anxious to avoid prolixity. As also since that period some 

 additional evidence has been obtained which corroborates my 

 opinions, I shall now advert to those points which are yet de- 

 bated, and perhaps place them in a clearer point of view than 

 had been done in my former paper. So far as regards the 

 action of ammonia without water, all my ideas have been 

 adopted ; but in the relation of the ammonia and water in the 

 common ammoniacal salts, where the ammonium theory of Ber- 

 zelius comes into question, the evidence for my theory has not 

 appeared so perfect. In fact, in order to see the true relation 

 of the Berzelian theory to mine, it is necessary to contemplate 

 the common salts of ammonia under two different points of 

 view, 1st, their position as alkaline salts, and 2nd, their po- 



