332 SULPHUR. 



silver, which has no metallic flavour, but tastes extremely sweet. 

 The existence of a hyposulphite in a solution, is easily recog- 

 nized, by its possessing the power to dissolve freshly precipi- 

 tated chloride of silver, and become sweet. 



Uses. The hyposulphite of soda is employed to distinguish 

 between the earths strontian and barytes, the latter of which it 

 precipitates, and not the former. It is also applied, in 

 certain circumstances, to dissolve the insoluble salts of 

 silver. 



CHLOROSULPHURIC ACID. 



Eg. 843.8 or 6*7,6; SO 2 C1; 4652; ["T~|- 



A compound which contains sulphur, oxygen, and chlorine, 

 has lately been discovered by M. Regnault, which he considers 

 as a combination of sulphurous acid with chlorine, and therefore 

 a member of the sulphurous acid series.* The circumstances 

 of the formation of this compound are singular. Chlorine and 

 sulphurous acid gases, dry or humid, may be mixed and even 

 transmitted through a glass tube, containing pounded glass or 

 spongy platinum, at all temperatures, without combining. But 

 when chlorine, which should be perfectly dry, is allowed to meet 

 in a glass balloon at once sulphurous acid and olefiant gas, per- 

 fectly dry, a chloride of sulphurous acid, and a chloride of olefiant 

 gas are simultaneously formed, with the evolution of much heat, 

 and condense together as an extremely mobile liquid, of a sharp 

 and suffocating odour. Regnault has observed that neither of these 

 compounds can be produced without the other, although they are 

 produced in a variable relation to each other as to quantity. The 

 olefiant gas, evolved upon heating 6 parts of oil of vitriol with 

 1 part of concentrated alcohol, passed through two vessels con- 

 taining oil of vitriol, to dry it, contains enough of sulphurous 

 acid for the preceding experiment. The liquor produced, thrown 

 into water, falls first to the bottom, in the form of oily drops, but 

 soon dissolves partially with elevation of temperature, and the 

 chloride of olefiant separates unaltered. The chlorosulphuric acid 

 itself, in dissolving, decomposes 1 atom of water, and changes 

 into hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid, a reaction which de- 

 monstrates the original compound to consist of 1 atom of sul- 

 phurous acid with 1 atom of chlorine. 



* An. de Ch. et de Ph. t. 69, p. 170. 



