476 PELOUZE ON CERTAIN COMBINATIONS OF A NEW ACID. 
of crystallization does into the ordinary’ salts, it is not likely that its 
presence could modify the sulphates so far as to cause them to lose 
their most characteristic property, that of forming an insoluble sub- 
stance with baryta. 
2. The nitrosulphate of potash yields, by heat alone, a disengagement 
of deutoxide of azote and a residue of sulphur. It is little probable that 
the protoxide of azote could become deutoxide at a temperature of 
140°, especially when it must take the oxygen which it wants from so 
stable a salt as the sulphate of potash. And, moreover, experience has 
proved to me that the protoxide has no action upon it at that tem- 
perature and above. I would add that, if the action of heat upon the 
nitrosulphate of ammonia induces the belief of the pre-existence of the 
protoxide of azote in that salt, the entirely different products of the de- 
composition of the nitrosulphate of potash by the same agent would 
lead us, adopting the same reasoning, to consider the latter salt as 
formed of sulphite of potash united with deutoxide of azote. 
I am more inclined to see in the action of heat a disorganizing 
power, whose effects vary with the nature of the substances upon which 
it is exerted. The question seems to me to be precisely the! same as 
that of the nitrates and hyposulphites, from which it has not been pos- 
sible to abstract the hyposulphurous and nitrous acids; only that, in- 
stead of two elements, the nitrosulphuric acid contains three, of which 
there are examples enough in chemistry. 
I have endeavoured to isolate this acid, and to prepare it directly, 
without the influences of the bases: in this I have not succeeded; but 
in the course of my attempts I have had occasion to remark a curious 
fact, which is at variance with all that has been said and written upon 
the theory of the formation of sulphuric acid; namely, that the deut- 
oxide of azote and sulphurous acid are able to produce sulphuric acid 
without the necessary presence of the air or of oxygen. The experi- 
ment is easily performed, and I have repeated it many times. Two 
hundred volumes of deutoxide of azote and one hundred of sulphurous 
acid, left alone for some hours at the ordinary temperature, in a gra- 
duated tube containing a small quantity of boiled water, are converted 
into pure sulphuric acid and a residue of protoxide of azote equal to 
one hundred volumes: such is the result; as to the theory, I am in- 
duced to believe that nitrosulphuric acid is at first formed, and is after- 
wards decomposed in the same manner and with still greater facility 
than the nitrosulphates. 
Hence the theory, or rather theories, on the formation of sulphuric 
acid, in the forms in which they have been propounded, must undergo 
a notable modification; for a certain quantity of protoxide of azote 
must necessarily be produced in the leaden chambers. I have for a 
long time past been occupied with experiments relative to this subject, 
and I hope shortly to publish the results. 
