110 HEINRICH ROSE OX THE COMBINATIONS OF 



tate of lead, forming a tumid, white pasty mass, which effervesced 

 with acids, and dissolved in water, leaving carbonate of lead be- 

 hind. The alcohol was left in the fluid state, and contained 

 some, although very little, ammonia. For this, and most of the 

 other experiments, the sesquicarbonate was distilled with anhy- 

 drous alcohol. 



It appears to result fi-om these experiments that the carbonate 

 of ammonia combines with some salts, and that it has towards 

 these, even when they are soluble in alcohol, a greater affinity 

 than alcohol towards them. However, this affinity does not 

 seem to be very considerable, and probably occurs only under 

 pecuhar circumstances, perhaps not without the presence of a 

 trace of water or alcohol, or at the common pressure of the 

 atmosphere. For when I placed some anhydrous fused chloride 

 of calcium, and some fused acetate of soda, in bottles which con- 

 tained anhydrous neutral carbonate of ammonia, which had been 

 prepared from a mixture of the carbonic and the ammoniacal 

 gases, none of it was absoi'bed by the fused salts, not even when 

 they had been moistened with some alcohol or water. The same 

 is the case with fused chloride of calcium, which absorbs none of 

 the usual sesquicarbonate of ammonia, when both are placed 

 together in vessels. If, therefore, under certain conditions, the 

 carbonate of ammonia appears to combine with some salts, this 

 affinity cannot be compared to that which pure ammonia exhibits 

 towards a great number of salts. 



The experiments above mentioned, of drying the neutral car- 

 bonate of ammonia moistened with alcohol, were modified in 

 various ways, but I never succeeded in obtaining a dry, unde- 

 composed salt. The result was either that the salt remained 

 moist or volatilized previous to desiccation, or that when it did 

 become dry the salt was no longer neutral. 



If the sesquicarbonate is distilled in a similar manner with 

 sether, the phaenomena are nearly the same: a considerable evo- 

 lution of carbonic acid gas takes place during the distillation of the 

 fether, but a far smaller quantity of carbonate of ammonia escapes 

 with the aether than with the alcohol. The sublimed mass is 

 the same neutral salt as that obtained with alcohol, and like it 

 cannot be obtained pure in a dry state. 



The only method by which I succeeded in obtaining a dry 

 neutral carbonate of ammonia, besides that of preparing it 

 from a mixture of carbonic acid gas with ammoniacal gas. 



