no 



DIVERS AND HAGA. 



towîirds acids and alkalis. The latter only partially precipitate 

 mercuric oxide from them, because the mercury is in immediate 

 relation with (unoxidised) nitrogen. Nitric acid, which can replace 

 the mercury by hydrogen, cannot do the same with the potassium or 

 sodium, because this is in oxylic relation with sulphuryl, as it is in 

 sulphates, and therefore irremovable by this acid. Sulphuric acid also 

 first replaces the mercury by hydrogen, when acting on the mercury 

 potassium salt, although from the mercury barium salt it takes first 

 the barium away. 



Berglund would have chemists regard mercury imidosulphonates 

 as salts of an independent acid, in which mercury is combined with 

 special force. A fuller knowledge of the imidosulphonates does not 

 tend to support him in this. There are other series of double imido- 

 sulphonates besides that of mercury, ai)parentl3' the only one observed 

 by him ; normal mercury hydrogen imidosulphonate has less stability 

 than imidosulphonic acid itself ; oxymercuric hydrogen imidosulpho- 

 nate is a far more stable body than it ; dipotassium and disodium 

 hydrogen imidosulphonates have equal or greater claims to be treated 

 as particular acids ; lastly, it is highly probable that, powerfully as 

 mercury takes the place of hydrogen in ammonia itself, it will have 

 little of that power when two-thirds of that hydrogen have already 

 been replaced by sulphonic radicals. 



The constitution of the salt in which two-thirds of the base of the 

 trisodium salt are replaced by mercury next requires attention. It 

 mio'ht be treated as having the single atom of sodium in the odd 

 basylous position, that is, united to the nitrogen ; but against this 

 four objections present themselves. One is that it is quite against 

 probability that the sodium should hold the imidic relation rather than 

 the sulphonic. A second is that it is quite as improbable that a 

 mercury atom should be united half to nitrogen and half to oxygen. 



