JlVi)UO\YJ.A.ML\i:-^/,y-DISrLl'll()XATK8. 5 



sodiiiin /9,9-salt (tliit^ Jouin. 19, Art. lö, IVo). Kemarkably, howev'er 

 (and it is a unique experience with this method, so far as has 

 been ascertainable), the depression of tlie sohdifying point of the 

 sodium sulphate is at first much less than that which corresponds 

 with the simple molecular weight, the number for which it only 

 reaches and remains steady at, in the course of an hour or two 

 and after several repetitions of remelting and solidifying. It 

 would seem from this that the solid salt consists of associated 

 simple molecules which require time to separate from each other 

 after dissolution in melted Glauber's salt. 



The discovery of this new series of salts, establishing as it 

 does the existence of significant structural isomerism in other 

 than carbon compounds, should prove to be of very special 

 interest, there being hardly any other instance known, except 

 that of nitramine with hyponitrous acid, the existence of 

 which is disputed by Hantzsch {Zeit, anorg. Ghem., 1898, 19, 

 106) just because it would be the only case known in inorganic 

 chemistry. 



The subjoined scheme of equations may serve to show at a 

 glance the relation by derivation of the new series of salts to the 

 old series. A hydroxylamine-^'^^-disulphonate, a salt formed by 

 the union of nitrous acid with a metasulphite, is oxidisable wholly 

 into a peroxylamiue-sulphonate. This, by hydrolysis in presence 

 of an alkali, becomes, to the extent of half its nitrogen, hydroxyl- 

 aminetrisulphonate ; to the extent of a fourth of its nitrogen, 

 the /5^3-salt again ; and, to the extent of the remaining fourth of 

 its nitrogen, nitrous acid (nitrite) again. Lastly, by acid hydroly- 

 sis, the hydroxylaminetrisulphonate becomes sulphate and a 

 hydroxylamine-a^3-disulphonate. From this it will be seen that, 

 at most, only the half of the ßß-^'a\i comes out as the «^^-salt. 



