CONSTITUTION OF NTTEOSOSULPHATES. 103 



amalgam acts alike upon solutions of nitrososulphates and thiosulphates, 

 hyponitrite or sulphide being formed, along with sulphite in either 

 case. 



What precedes refers only to the relations of the nitric oxide, as 

 a whole, to the rest of the nitrososulphate. There remain to he 

 considered the relations of the elements of the nitric oxide to each 

 other and to the sulphury! and adjacent basic radical or metal. 

 Putting together the constitution of hyponitrites as established by 

 Zorn, and the generation of these salts from nitrososulphates observed 

 by us, nitrososulphates might long ago have been formulated as 

 MON 2 OS0 2 -OM, as indeed was done by Michaelis in entering our 

 results in his edition of Graham-Otto s Lehrbuch, but which we had 

 hesitated to do. On the other hand, Raschig, W. Traube, Hantzsch, 

 and Duden consider nitrososulphates to be sulphonates, from analogies 

 which we do not find to hold good, for reasons already given in our 

 previous paper. We have, there, also expressed preference for the 

 sulphate constitution of these salts, on the ground that they instantly 

 and fully give the reaction of a sulphate, upon addition of barium 

 chloride acidified with hydrogen chloride, since even the least stable 

 of the certainly sul phonic nitrogen compounds, discovered by Fremy, 

 take an appreciable time to begin precipitating, and a not inconsider- 

 able time to finish doing so. To make this difference in behaviour 

 more assured, we have thoroughly tested, by heat under pressure, the 

 mother-liquor of barium sulphate just precipitated from potassium 

 nitrososulphate, and have found no residual sulphur in it. 



That nitrososulphates are not sulphonates, but true sulphates, we 

 can now finally establish through the effect, of alcohol upon them in 

 aqueous solution. Alone in solution, the potassium salt slowly de- 

 composes into normal sulphate and nitrous oxide, but when a little 

 alcohol is present, it partly changes into potassium ethyl sulphate, 



