192 E. DIVERS AND M. OGAWA : 



Its properties, constitution, and name. 



The new salt is white and apparently crystalline, and ap- 

 pears to be slightly volatile in a current of ammonia. It is 

 very deliquescent and decomposes, losing ammonia, in the air. 

 It dissolves in water, giving out heat and a hissing sound, and 

 if dissolved by ice or enough ice-cold water, furnishes a solution 

 answering all tests for pure ammonium sulphite. In this respect 

 it is quite unlike ammonium amidosulphate or carbamate, since 

 even the latter salt gives at first no precipitate with calcium 

 chloride, which at once precipitates all sulphite from the new 

 salt. When the salt is much decomposed, its solution gives 

 other reactions besides those of a sulphite. In anhydrous alcohol 

 it dissolves freely, evidently as ethyl ammoniumsulphite ; it is 

 also slightly soluble in dry ether. It soon begins to change and 

 then assumes an orange-colour, even at the common temperature. 

 At 30-o5° it decomposes into a liquid and a solid part, both 

 more or less orange-coloured, and into ammonia, the liquid part 

 undergoing further change into solid matters (p. 197) 



Constitution. — The salt is more probably an amido- than an 

 imido- compound, NH4N(S02NH4)2 (analogue of normal ammo- 

 nium imidosulphate), because it can be obtained only when the 

 temperature is kept down and the ammonia is in excess. It is 

 still more probably a sulphuryl rather than a thionyl compound, 

 because of its feeble activity as a reducing agent and of its very 

 easy passage into ammonium sulphite or ethyl ammoniumsulphite. 

 It has accordingly to be formulated as NH2"SOo*NH4, and not 

 NHo-SO-ONH,. 



Name. — Since the salt represents ammonium sulphite» 

 NIl40*S02*NH4, in which the ammonoxyl is replaced by amido- 



