AMMONIUM AND OTHER IMIDOSULPHITES. 



These crystals are neutral and have a bitter taste, not a 

 sulphurous one. They are freely soluble in water and very deli- 

 quescent. The solution is unstable and in some of its reactions 

 greatly resembles that of ammonium imidosulphite. With potas- 

 sium hydroxide the salt evolves ammonia at once, but analysis of 

 potassium salts prepared from it in 70 per cent, alcoholic solution 

 have given discordant results. A striking difference from an 

 imidosulphite is that its fresh solution gives no barium precipitate 

 even in presence of ammonia. Also that in freshly prepared solu- 

 tion, it does not decolourise iodine solution, and only slowly cold 

 acid permanganate. It also does not give the ferric-chloride 

 colouration of a thiosulphate which the imidosulphite does give. 

 Its solution becomes very acid after a time and then smells much 

 more strongly of sulphur dioxide than a similar solution of 

 imidosulphite. The crystalline matter having nearly the composi- 

 tion expressed by 9NH 3 , 8S0 2 , mentioned on p. 197 of our paper 

 on ammonium amidosulphite (this Journal, 1900, 13), we believe 

 to have been the present salt mixed with imidosulphite and 

 amidosulphate. On a future occasion we hope to be in a position 

 to report upon the constitution of the body we have here described. 



