AMMONIUM AMIDOSULPHITE. 193 



gen, it is properly called ammonium aniidosulphite. Berglund's 

 name of amidosulphonate now in use, for amidosulpliate is 

 evidently based on a misconception. The name, amidosulphinate, 

 in analogy with amidosulphonate, must be rejected on the same 

 grounds, and because the salt has not the characteristic reducing 

 action and the constitution of sulphinates. It does not seem 

 possible, even were it desirable, to construct a term for the first 

 amide of sul2:)hurous acid that would correspond to that of sul- 

 phamic acid, the synonym of amidosulphuric acid. 



Nature of the decomposition by heat of the aynidosulphite. 



History. — Experiments made earlier than ours on the union 

 of sulphur dioxide with ammonia gave the products of decom- 

 position of ammonium amidosulphite instead of the salt itself. 

 Doebereiner in 1826 (Schw, Jahrb., 17, 120), described the pro- 

 duct of the union as a brown-yellow vapour quickly condensing 

 to a bright brown solid mass, which the smallest quantity of 

 water converts into (colourless) ammonium sulphite. Rose 2:)ub- 

 lished three papers on ' anhydrous sul^^hite of ammonia ' in 

 1834, 1837, and 1844 {Pogg. Ann., 33, 235; 42, 41 Ö ; 61, 397), 

 in the second correcting statements made in the first, and 

 modifying in the third the views he had expressed in the earlier 

 papers. The outcome was that he had ascertained that the pro- 

 duct of the union is always one and the same single substance, 

 in whatever proportions the dry gases are taken ; that it is 

 composed of equal volumes of the gases, is either yellowish-red 

 and smeary, or red crystalline, very deliquescent and very 

 soluble in w^ater without evolving ammonia ; that it yields a 

 neutral solution, which is at first yellowish but soon, becomes 



