524 



The chloride is more soluble and somewhat less easily crystallized 

 from water, but it may, like the corresponding phenylene-diamine 

 compound, be crystallized from hydrochloric acid. It contains 



The platinum-salt crystallizes in golden scales. It is somewhat 

 soluble in water, and is therefore conveniently washed with alcohol. 

 The formula of this substance is 



}N 3 ]"ci 2 ,2PtCl s 



The substances of which I have submitted a short account to the 

 Society are capable of furnishing an almost endless variety of deriva- 

 tives. They are acted upon by cyanogen, chloride of cyanogen, by the 

 chlorides of the acid radicals (chloride of acetyl and chloride of ben- 

 zoyl), by the iodides of the alcohol-radicals, by disulphide of carbon, 

 &c., forming a series of substances most of them remarkably well 

 crystallized. Their composition being nearly always indicated in 

 advance by theory, it is not my intention to examine these various 

 derivatives in detail, but I shall avail myself of the two easily acces- 

 sible diamines which I have described, for the purpose of establishing 

 by a few numbers the chief characteristics of the diatomic bases 

 corresponding to the aromatic monamines. I propose more espe- 

 cially to examine the deportment of these substances under the 

 influence of nitrous acid. The action of nitrous acid upon aniline 

 furnishing phenyl-alcohol, 



^6 -"-5 



H 



there is some hope of meeting, in the analogous decomposition of 

 phenylene-diamiae with the diatomic phenylene-alcohol (phenyl- 

 gtycol), 



(0 H 4 ) 1 ff\ TT \ff TT - 



H 2 lN 2 +2HNO a =^g*> J0 2 +2gjO+N 4 (?). 



The facility with which acetate of iron effects the reduction of 

 nitro-compounds in cases in which the sulphide of ammonium acts 

 but slowly, or is altogether inadmissible on account of secondary de- 

 compositions which it may induce, suggests this method for the pro- 



