286 



E. DIVERS AND T. HAGA: 



support of the non-sulphonic constitution of nitrososulphates, that 

 we may now give account of in this connection. It is that sodium 

 amalgam is without action upon a true amine sulphonate or hydroxyl- 

 amine sulphonate, as such. We have, indeed, just been showing in 

 this paper that amidosulphonic acid is producible by sodium ; it and 

 imidosulphonate (no doubt, also nitrilosuJphonate) are entirely un- 

 affected by it. Oxyamidosulphonic acid in alkaline solution is also un- 

 touched by it, and in acid or neutral solution is only reduced to amido- 

 sulphonic acid (see our paper on this acid, this vol., p. 222). Schatzmann 

 is stated by Hantzsch and Semple (Berichte, 1895, 28 2745) to have 

 found Fremy's potassium sidpliazilate to be reducible by sodium, but 

 only back to the oximidosulphonate from which by oxidation it is 

 prepared ; as a sulphonate, it is not affected. Since then all amine 

 sulphonates, oxygenated or otherwise, resist, as sulphonates, the action 

 of sodium amalgam, while a nitrososulphate at once yields to it, the 

 latter is not of the same class as they, that is, is not a sulphonate. 



A similar point against nitrososulphates being sulphonic has 

 been made out by Lachmann and Thiele (Ann. 1895, 288 267). 

 It is that, whereas all undoubted sulphonic derivatives of ammonia 

 give pure nitrous oxide, in the cold, when mixed with nitric and 

 sulphuric acids (cf. Divers and Haga, this Journ., 1892, 6, 77 ; 1896, 

 9 233) and sometimes even a little nitramide, potassium nitroso- 

 sulphate does not. 



We come now to the formation of amidosulphonate, which is, 

 essentially, that of the reduction of a sulphate to the corresponding 

 sulphite, something, hitherto, unknown to occur, even in alkaline 

 solution. But we have here to do with a sulphate of the group, 

 N 2 OK, and it would seem that, just as EtS0 3 K and AgS0 3 K do not 

 oxidise to sulphate, while KS0 3 K does, because it has the oxidisable 

 potassium atom and they have a non-oxidisable atom, either ethyl or 



