Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 3 1 1 



of potash and arseniate of copper, in the state of a double salt. 

 When this compound reduced to powder is treated with water, the 

 double salt is decomposed ; the water carries off the arseniate and 

 nitrate of potash, and leaves a precipitate of arseniate of copper of 

 an admirable blue colour.— Z7«5ft<Mf, Aout 1, 1849. 



ON METHYLAMINE AND ETHYLAMINE. 



M. Adolphe Wurtz has described the preparation and properties 

 of the above compounds, belonging to a class of substances to which 

 he has given the name of compound ammonias (ammoniaques com- 

 posees). 



Methylamine. — The process by which this base was obtained 

 does not differ from that employed by chemists in preparing am- 

 monia. Perfectly dry hydrochlorate of methylamine is mixed with 

 twice its weight of quicklime, and the mixture is^ introduced into a 

 long tube closed at one end, so as to occupy half of it. The other half 

 is filled with fragments of potash, to which a tube is adapted for 

 conveying the gas to an air-jar filled with mercury. The tube is to 

 be slightly heated, beginning at the closed end ; methylammoniacal 

 gas, displaced by the lime, is abundantly liberated, and received in 

 the air-jar filled M'ith mercury. 



Methylamine thus prepared is a non-permanent gas. At about 

 S2° F. it condenses into a very moveable liquid. Its odour is strongly 

 ammoniacal. Its density was found to be 1*13 ; it is therefore rather 

 more dense than atmospheric air. The experimental result is rather 

 higher than the theoretical, which is r075. This is undoubtedly 

 owing to the temperature at which the experiment was made, the 

 gas being too near its point of liquefaction. 



Methylammonla gas is the most soluble of all gases hitherto 

 known. At the temperature of about 53° F. one volume of water 

 dissolves 1040 volumes; a higher temperature diminishes this solu- 

 bility, as might be expected. At 77° F. water dissolves only 959 

 times its volume. 



Like ammonia, it is instantaneously absorbed by charcoal, and also 

 resembles it in immediately rendering reddened litmus paper blue ; 

 when exposed to the vapour of hydrochloric acid, it forms a very 

 thick white smoke. Like ammonia, it absorbs an equal vglume of 

 hydrochloric acid gas, and half its volume of carbonic acid gas. It 

 is distinguished from ammoniacal gas by the circumstance that, when 

 exposed to flame, it takes fire and burns with a yellowish flame. 



The composition of methylammonla gas is represented by C^H* N 

 = 4 vols. 



An elegant and rapid analysis of this gas is effected by heating it 

 with potassium in a bent tube : cyanide of potassium is formed and 

 hydrogen is evolved, C'^ H^ N + K=C2NK + H5. 



The solution of meth}lamine has the strong odour of the gas itself. 

 Its taste is caustic and burning. Iodine reacts upon the solution of 

 methylamine, and is converted into a powder of a garnet- red colour ; 



