60 HYPONITRITES ; PßOPERTlES AND PßEPAEATlOX BY 



appeared to be li3qjouitrite wlieii partially decomposing öilver 

 nitrite by heat, that is, a- Ijright yellow substance insoluble in 

 water and soluble in auinionia. I have failed to get this again. 

 Silver hvponitrite and silver nitrite heated together show nothing 

 until decomposition and the escape of red fumes occur, and then 

 all hyponitrite has been destroyed. 



When making known his observation of the interaction of 

 hydroxylamine and nitrous acid in 1893, Paal stated that from 

 a solution of alkali hyponitrite which also contained nitrite, silver 

 nitrate had precipitated a substance which, though like silver 

 hyponitrite, proved to ])Q a silver nitrito-hyponitrite. It gave 

 no silver nitrite even to hot water, and could be dissolved in 

 cold dilute nitric acid and be reprecipitated with ammonia without 

 suffering change in composition. It was less stable than the 

 simple hyponitrite when heated, gave the reactions of a nitrite 

 along witli those of a hyponitrite, and yielded numbers (not 

 quoted) on analysis for silver which agreed nearly with that 

 required by the formula, AgoNA- 'J'en years before, Berthelot 

 and Ogier, under probably similar conditions, had got similar 

 results, except that they were led by their analyses to give the 

 formula, Ag^NA? to the substance they had obtained. It is true 

 that silver hyponitrite retains with obstinacy enough nitrite 

 against endeavours to purify it, to give the iodide and starch 

 reaction for a nitrite, and that it often, through the presence of 

 impurities which escape attention, gives low results for the silver, 

 but beyond these admissions I cannot subscril)e to the accounts 

 given by the chemists just named of the existence of compounds 

 of silver hyponitrite with silver nitrite. 



I have reduced sodium nitrite by sodium amalgam, as usual, 

 and dissolved in the solution one-sixth as much more sodium 



