22 6 E - DIVERS AND T. H AHA 



oxide and water. After the reduction, addition of hydrochloric acid 

 liberates much sulphur dioxide. 



The reaction does not quite complete itself, ceasing when the 

 solutions become very dilute. Thus, if to a solution of one gram 

 of the oxyamidosulphonate in a liter, only a few drops of a dilute 

 solution of copper sulphate and then of potassium hydroxide are 

 added, the mixture shows a permanent blue opalescence, but deposits 

 no cuprous hydroxide, even when preserved for hours in a closed 

 vessel. This observation may serve to show that although, wdien 

 very dilute, alkali does not produce much sulphite and hyponitrite, 

 this is not because hydroxyamine and sulphate are produced instead, 

 for if such were the case the hydroxyamine would then act upon the 

 cupric hydroxide. 



The fact that the alkaline solution contains not hydroxyamine 

 but a sulphonic derivative of it, which gives sulphite in its reactions 

 with reducible bodies, and that it has only half the action of its 

 equivalent of hydroxyamine, are serious, if not fatal, objections to re- 

 sorting to it ;is a reagent on organic compounds, as Kaschig has 

 suggested may economically be done. This chemist, notwithstanding 

 that he has pointed out (his memoir, p. 182) that the reason that 

 oximidosulphonates do not possess any of the reducing pow r er 

 of hydroxyamine, is that in them the two active hydrogens of hy- 

 droxyamine are replaced by sulphonic radicals, and that oxyamido- 

 sulphonates by retaining still one of these hydrogens remain as 

 equally easily reducible as hydroxyamine itself, has yet failed to see 

 that, his contention being well-founded, it will be the oxyamido- 

 sulphonate and not hydroxyamine which exerts the reducing power of 

 its alkaline solution. That it is so, is shown by the fact, determined 

 by us, that in the absence of reducible agents, alkalis to a small ex- 

 tent do not decompose oxvamidosulphonates and for the rest change 



