SALTS OF ANTIMONY. 639 



crystalline mass on cooling. It is a powerful cautery. This 

 salt deliquesces in air, and is troubled, owing to the deposition 

 of a subsalt. A concentrated solution of chloride of antimony 

 is also obtained by dissolving the sulphuret of antimony in hy- 

 drochloric acid. When this solution is thrown into water, it 

 gives a white, bulky precipitate, which after a time resolves 

 itself into groups of small crystals, having usually a fawn colour; 

 it was formerly called the powder of Alyaroth. These small 

 crystals are an oxichloride of antimony, of which the composi- 

 tion is 2Sb Cl 3 + 9SbO 3 , according to the analysis of Johnston 

 and Malaguti. 



Sulphate of antimony, SbO 3 , 3S0 3 , is obtained by boiling 

 metallic antimony with concentrated sulphuric acid, as a white 

 saline mass, which is decomposed by water. 



Oxalate of potash and antimony, KO, C 2 O 3 -f Sb O 3 , 3C 2 O 3 . 

 This is a double crystallizable salt of antimony, which, like the 

 tartrate of potash and antimony, may be dissolved in water 

 without decomposition. It is prepared by saturating binoxalate 

 of potash with oxide of antimony. It is soluble, at 48, in ten 

 times its weight of water, (Lassaigne.) According to Bussy, 

 when binoxalate of potash is digested upon oxide of antimony in 

 excess, two salts are formed, one in oblique prisms, and another 

 less soluble, in intricate small crystals; but neither is very 

 stable. The former is decomposed by much water : its analysis 

 gave 3<KO, C 2 O 3 ) + Sb O 3 , 3C 2 O 3 + 6HO.* 



Tartrate of potash and antimony, KO. Sb O 3 -f (C 8 H 4 O 10 ) 

 2HO; 4164.24-225 or 333.68 + 18. This salt, the tartar emetic 

 or potash tartrate of antimony of pharmacy, is prepared by 

 neutralising bitartrate of potash with oxide of antimony ; 

 the oxide obtained by decomposing the chloride or sulphate 

 of antimony with water answers best for the purpose. A quantity 

 of oxide of antimony may be boiled with three or four times its 

 weight of water, and bitartrate of potash added in small quanti- 

 ties till the oxide is entirely dissolved. The filtered solution yields 

 the salt, on cooling, in large transparent crystals, of which the 

 form is an octohedron with a rhombic base ; they become white 

 in the air, and lose their water of crystallization. They are 

 soluble in 14 times their weight of cold Water, and in 1.88 boiling 

 water, but not in alcohol. The mother liquor of these crystals 

 becomes a syrupy liquid, and dries up into a gummy mass 

 * Journal de Pharra. 1838, p. 50Q. 



T T 



