AMIDOSULPHON'IC ACID. 223 



the case was recognised by Raschig, but he did not attempt to effect 

 the change. We find that potassium oxyamidosulphonate mixed, in 

 solution, with a molecule of potassium hydrogen carbonate and 

 submitted to the action of sulphur dioxide, as in sulphonating 

 potassium nitrite, is converted largely, and apparently completely, into 

 the sparingly soluble, two-thirds normal potassium imidosulphonate, 

 and under conditions like those of the sulphonation of hydroxy lamine. 

 For, the change is not immediate, but requires hours at the common 

 temperature for completion, while at or near 0° it seems not to take 

 place at all. 



Methyl sulphate and ammonia do not form methyl amidosulphonatel 

 as they were long supposed to do, but primary, secondary, and tertiary 

 methylammonium sulphates and ammonium sulphate (Berglund, 

 1876). Ammonia acts, therefore, upon an alkyl sulphate, as Berglund 

 pointed out, as it does upon an alkyl nitrate (Carey Lea, 1860). 



Although the nature of the interaction of ammonia and methy, 

 sulphate was discovered and worked out in detail by Berglund, his 

 name is not even mentioned in connection with the subject in chemical 

 literature, as represented by Beilstein's Handbuch and Morley and 

 Muir's Dictionary. The whole credit of the discovery is given to 

 Claesson and Lundvall, who, remarkably enough, dated their paper 

 from Lund in 1880, only four years after Berglund's memoir on 

 amidomlphonie acid, had appeared in that university town, and yet 

 made no reference to it. In all points, so far as methyl sulphate 

 and ammonia are concerned, Claesson and Lundvall had been antici- 

 pated by their countryman, except that, very usefully, they varied the 

 experiment of dissolving the alkyl salt in ether and then passing 

 ammonia gas into it, by first saturating; ether with ammonia and then 

 adding the sulphate gradually, and thus reduced to a minimum the 

 production of the secondary and tertiary ammonium salts. The only 



