THE REDUCTION OF XTTROSOSULPHATES. 



285 



same disposition to give botli sulphite and sulphate that it does 

 when heated and when moistened. Hitherto, it has been possible 

 to say of ihe latter changes that, supposing the salt to be a 

 sulphonate, it might give a sulphate by an oxidising process. 

 But the present observation of the generation of much sulphate by 

 sodium, in strongly alkaline solution, affords another proof of 

 the impossibility of regarding a nitrososulphate as a sulphonic com- 

 pound. For sodium to produce a sulphate out of a sulphite seems 

 beyond belief. Nevertheless, Duden, having adopted for potassium 

 nitrososulphate the constitution given it by Raschig, has not hesitated 

 to derive a sulphate from it by the action of sodium, in an equation 

 framed to express the formation of hydrazine. Raschig's formula is 



/OK 



ON*N<; , and is one well suited to explain the decomposition of 



\S0 3 K 



the salt into sulphate and nitrous oxide, — too well suited, indeed, for 

 it is hardly conceivable how, with such a constitution, a nitrososul- 

 phate could exist at all, and, if existing, could ever give back sulphite 

 when heated. To believe that sodium amalgam would act upon a salt 

 thus constituted, in such a way as to produce a sulphate, requires of 

 us to go against what we know to be true of every other sulphonate. 

 Duden detaches the OK as potassium hydroxide and then, armed 

 with this alkali, puts its hydrogen in the place of the SOJv and 

 gets sulphate out of this and the OK. But there is not a case 

 to be found of an organic sulphonate, in reaction with potassium 

 hydroxide, yielding a sulphate instead of a sulphite. So with the 

 sulphonated hydroxylamines, both of which decompose in concentrated 

 potassium hydroxide solution, for they, too, give potassium sulphite. 

 When Duden obtained hydrazine from a nitrososulphate, he furnished 

 another proof that the salt is not a sulphonate. 



There is a fact, which we have not yet brought forward in 



