60 



DIVERS AND HAGA. 



evident as it was probable that imidosiil phonic acid c<:)uld not fix a 

 third ntoni of ammonia along with its imidic hydrogen, and that 

 Berglund's view might not be right. 



Experiment has, however, established th;it sulphatammon is, 

 as Berglund considered it, the triammonium salt. Crystals of the 

 diammonium salt were coarsely ground (they are somewhat hy- 

 groscopic, as just stated, and slip under the pestle, and so are not 

 readily ground fine). Of this powder a quantity, equal to 2*29 

 grammes if dried at 100°, wns exposed to a current of carefully dried 

 ammonia, of which it absorbed in two hours 5f per cent., and in two 

 hours more an .additional quantity amounting altogether to 6^ ])er 

 cent., the temperature being 20.° The calculated quantity to ])e 

 absorbed is 8 per cent., but considering the coarseness of the particles 

 and the temperature, the result obtained is sufiicient. The absorption 

 of the ammonia was attended with a very considerable change in tlie 

 volume of the solid, and gave it the form of n loose, non-coherent, 

 amorphous powder. Tts odour was only mildly ammoniacal, and it 

 was easily preserved without care in a liottle. Dissolved in water it 

 became strongly ammoniacal, :ind the solution gave a copious ])re- 

 cipitate with barium chloride and otherwise behaved as a solution of 

 the crystalline, hydrated salt, which salt indeed it yielded wlien 

 treated with ammonia gas. Evaporation <^f the solution gave crystals 

 of the dinmmonium snlt, which is just what Woronin observed 

 in the behaviour of sulphatammon which thus became parasul- 

 ])hatammon. 



Exposing it in a desiccator over sidphuric acid for three days at 

 a temperature of or about 20,° we found it to lose only about a half 

 per cent, of its weight so that prob.ably the ])ure dry salt loses am- 

 monia only in a damp atmosphere, ahhough indeed Jacquelain has 

 found sulphatammon (probably damp) sometimes give up much am- 



