W. Gibbs on the Constitution of Organic Compounds. 29 
acid plays the part of a weak base with acids, yielding well de- 
fined salts with nitric, sulphuric and oxalic acids. The products 
of its decomposition by heat, viz., anilin and carbonic acid, ar 
Ci12HisNO4 = C2014 CiHhisN, 
CuH7NOs = C201+Ci2HiN. 
It is therefore probable that anthranilic acid belongs to the same 
type as leucin. Schwanertt adopts this view, and considering 
anthranilic acid as carbanilic acid, regards leucin as amyl-carba- 
mic acid, a view which explains only one of the modes of decom- 
position of that body, and which is irreconcilable with all the 
I suggest that anthranilic acid may contain the salicyl 
radical, C11HsOz, and that its rational formula is 
CuHi02 
Nio O+H0. 
H 
In the decomposition of anthranilic acid by heat, all the oxygen 
unites with two equivalents of the carbon of the salisoxy]l, 
14H4Os2, while all the hydrogen remains united with the other 
twelve equivalents of carbon and one of nitrogen to form anilin. 
The radical C11HsOz2 is of course to be regarded as diatomic. 
That anthranilic acid actually contains the radical C1+H4Oz ap- 
pears most clearly from the fact that with nitrous acid it yields 
icylic acid, by the process of replacement already explained. 
Thus we have 
C1u4Hi02 CuHsO2 
; 2 NO+HO0+NO;= ~ Oi+-2N-++-H0. 
Taurin.—This substance may be readily reduced to the type 
of hydrate of oxyd of ammonium, if we remark that the radi- 
cal S2Os replaces two equivalents of hydrogen. We have then 
for taurin the formula 
S201) | 
N 2 Ci:Hs }0+H0. 
By fusion with caustic potash taurin yields acetate and sulphite 
of potash, a result which is easily explained upon the supposi- 
tion that the ammonium molecule contains ethyl. By the action 
of nitrous acid taurin should yield an acid having the formula 
CsHS20s, since we should have the equation 
$204 S204 
N ag forHosxo-—| a O1-+-2N+-HO. 
* Ann. der Chemie und Pharmacie, cii, 236. + The same, ci, 295. 
_ $ Ann. der Chemie und Pharmacie, cii, 221. 
