Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 395 



chemical agents, and but difficultly oxidized ; the viscid, inactive 

 form corresponds to stibaethine. Researches upon this variety of 

 alcarsine and its salts Avould be very desirable. The compounds 

 resulting from the action of chloride of mercury and nitrate of silver 

 with alcarsine are probably compounds of arsine, analogous to the 

 ammoniacal combinations of these salts. It is to be remarked, that 

 while the salts of stibaethine are, from the very mode of their forma- 

 tion, acid, those of arsine, if we except perhaps the sulphate, are 

 neutral. 



Cacodyle is formed by the reduction of the hydrochlorate of arsine, 

 chloride ofarsenium by zinc ; precisely as 2ZnCl + K 2 give 2KC1 + Zn 2 , 

 we obtain chloride of zinc with the elimination of arsenium, that is, 

 of As C 2 H 6 + AsOH 6 = C 4 H 12 As 2 . Cacodyle is thus precisely analo- 

 gous to a metal, and with chlorine or sulphur yields compounds of 

 the arsine series ; the above formula, however, represents two vo- 

 lumes of vapour, while the equivalent of the chloride is represented 

 by AsC 2 H 6 , CI. I have, however, endeavoured on a previous occa- 

 sion to show that the atom of the metals in their free state is repre- 

 sented by M 2 , and hence cacodyle corresponds perfectly to Zn 2 , 

 which, in combining with chlorine, breaks up to form two equiva- 

 lents of ZnCl ; alcargen, cacodylic acid, is not an oxide of cacodyle, 

 for its formula is C 2 H 5 As0 2 ; and being anhydrous, it is equivalent 

 to a compound of ammonia with oxygen, and not of ammonium, as 

 M. Bunsen's theory demands. 



MM. Lowig and Schweizer assert, that by oxidation, stibaethyle 

 yields C 4 H 5 Sb=:SbEt, which combines with O 5 , S 5 . As we have 

 no other evidence that the type of the ammonia is ever thus destroyed, 

 it is more probable that the action removes H 2 from one atom of Et, 

 as in the formation of stibaethine, and oxidizes the two remaining 

 atoms of aethyle, leaving H in their place; Sb, C 2 H 5 = Sb, C 2 H 3 , 

 HH, corresponding to arsine, and like it combining with O 2 , S 2 

 (O b in their notation not being divisible by two, is inadmissible, 

 unless the formula is to be doubled). The properties of the new 

 compound, stibathylic acid of the author, and CH'SbO 5 in his nota- 

 tion, but more probably C 2 H 5 Sb0 2 , lead us to conclude that it is the 

 antimonial species corresponding to alcargen, C-TTAsO 2 . It is a 

 white solid, soluble in water and alcohol, but insoluble in aether, and 

 is converted by H 2 S into an odorous compound, in which its oxygen 

 is replaced by sulphur : the history of the body is not, however, 

 complete. 



I remarked four years since, that glycocoll is the nitrogen species 

 corresponding to alcargen, and published some experiments upon 

 the action of sulphuretted hydrogen upon nitrous aether, under- 

 taken with the hope of obtaining the nitrogen compound cor- 

 n .-ponding to alcarsine*. M. Laurent was, however, disposed to 

 regard glycocoll as the amide of a bibasic acid C 2 H 4 3 , the ho- 

 iBQlogUfl of carbonic acid, and hence explained its monobasic acid 

 character; but to this view it is to be objected, that the ordinary 

 amides of bibasic acids arc cither neutral, like oxamide, or acid with- 

 * Chcm. Gaz. vol. v. p. 866. 



