310 BUNSEN ON THE CACODYL SERIES. 
of mercury is immediately formed, which dissolves again in the 
excess of acid with the separation of some yellow oily drops. 
This oily substance passes off on distillation, and has all the 
characters of iodide of cacodyl. Hydriodate of mercury remains 
behind in the retort. 
Kd O +2Hg ~ =i I 
HI ~ Hg, Cl, + HO 
Muriatic acid reacts in precisely the same way. Chloride of 
cacodyl and sublimate are formed. 
Kd O/+ He, Ne {tie me 
H Cl # 
and the other hydrogen acids all have the same reaction. 
The stronger oxygen acids, as phosphoric acid, scarcely de- 
compose this compound. It is true that the water which passes 
over on distillation has the odour of chloride of cacodyl, but it 
is present only in the most minute quantities. This reaction is 
scarcely reconcileable with the existence of suboxide of mercury 
in this compound. 
When phosphorous acid is distilled with this compound, chlo- 
ride of cacodyl is formed, and subchloride of mercury sepa- 
rated, while the acid reduces the oxide of cacodyl, whose radical 
combines with one half of the chlorine of the sublimate. 
2 Kd Cl 
a O + He, ohn ai ene 
A larger quantity of phosphorous aut Redan reduces the 
mercury. 
Metallic tin, mercury, and all those bodies which reduce the 
sublimate, react in the same way. 
Chloride of gold, and the easily reducible metallic oxides, are 
reduced by “the oxide of cacodyl with chloride of mercury,” as 
by the free oxide, while muriatic and cacodylic acids are formed. 
Au, Cl, Au, 
3HO } = \; H Cl 
Kd O Kd O, 
The decomposition which this substance undergoes when | 
boiled by itself and with an excess of chloride of mercury, de- 
pends upon the same circumstance. Subchloride of mercury 
falls to the bottom, chloride of cacodyl passes off with the aque- 
ous vapour, and cacodylic acid remains in solution. 
