100 MM. Schischkoff and Kekulé on Fulminie Acid. 
of such conductors or the point of communication. Thus if P, 
fig. 16, be a rectangular plate connected with the fixed dise p 
of the balance by means of a slight wire, Pp, passing through a 
hole in the glass of the cage, the divergence of the needle will 
be precisely the same when charged with the same quantity of 
electricity, in whatever position the plate P be placed, or with 
whatever point of it the wire Py communicate. It will be, for 
example, just the same whether we place P transversely and cen- 
trally as at P, or in the direction of its length as P’, the commu- 
nicating wire being connected with either of its extremities. 
[To be continued. | 
X. Chemical Notices from Foreign Journals. 
By &. Arxinson, Ph.D. 
[Continued from p. 59.] 
N the older view of the constitution of fulminic acid it was 
considered to be bibasic, and polymeric with eyanic acid. 
But this view did not sufficiently well account for some of its 
properties ; and Gerhardt, in the first edition of his ‘ Organic 
Chemistry,’ held, that from the explosive properties of the 
fulminates their nitrogen was contained, not as cyanogen, but 
partially as NO*, and he gave to fulminic acid the formula 
C+ N (NO*) H®. The constitution of this acid has lately been 
the subject of separate investigation at the hands of Schischkoff* 
and Kekulé*, who have arrived at results which are very similar, 
and include Gerhardt’s supposition. 
From the highly explosive nature of the fulminates, and from 
the fact that cyanogen compounds are constantly formed in their 
various decompositions, Kekulé heldthat one half of their nitrogen 
was in the form of NO*, and the other half as cyanogen. It 
follows from this, that the other half must be present in another 
form, and would constitute with the remaining constituents a 
compound belonging to the methyle group. The formula of ful- 
minating mercury would then be C?(NO%) (C?N) Hg’, and 
would exhibit in its composition the greatest analogy with a 
large class of compounds; for instance, C? H, Cl, Cl, Cl, chloro- 
form ; C? (NO*) Cl, Cl, Cl, chloropicrine; C? H H H C?N, ace- 
tonitrile (cyanide of methyle). Fulminating mercury would 
stand nearest to chloropicrine and acetonitrile. Like the former, 
it would be a nitro-compound, and like the latter, a cyanogen 
compound. It might be a nitroacetonitrile, whose two hy- 
drogen atoms are replaced by mercury, and hypothetical fulminic 
acid would be a nitroacetonitrile, C? HH (NO*) C? N. 
* Liebig’s Annalen, February 1857. 
