IV.— CHEMISTRY. 



Art. LX. — On the Analogy of Cyanogen to Oxygen, By William Skey, 



Analyst to the Geological Survey of New Zealand. 



\Read hefore the Wellington Philosophical Society, 29th August, 1874] 



I HAVE to preface my remarks upon this subject by the statement that they 

 are entirely of a theoretical nature, and therefore unsupported by the results 

 of that kind of experimental research, the details of which it will be 

 remembered have hitherto constantly formed the groundwork of those previous 

 papers of mine read before you ; however, for this once I must beg your kind 

 indulgence for a hearing upon that which, if it has any value, owes it to 

 chemical researches and chemical records, long since accumulated by other 

 chemists. 



Presuming then upon your indulgence, I will at once state that the subject 

 of this paper is the true position of a certain compound body among the 

 elements as deducible from its known chemical reactions, that now assigned to 

 it being, I think, incorrect. 



The great impoi tance of interpreting those facts correctly by which we 

 compare our imitative with our real elements, is so obvious to those anxious to 

 apprehend more of the true nature of the elements than at present we do, that 

 I need not excuse myself for bringing such a matter as this before you. 



The substance, the supposed position of which I take exception to, is 

 cyanogen, a compound as you are aware of carbon and nitrogen in equivalent 

 quantities. It and a number of other compounds into which it enters are now 

 classed indiscriminately and collectively with the chlorine group as salt 

 radicals, but to cyanogen itself " par excellence" is attributed this character. 



That this is in reality the position assigned to cyanogen is indisputable. 

 Brand and Taylor in their excellent work on chemistry, designate this 

 substance as a compound radical and associate it with chlorine, bromine, and 

 iodine for reasons I shall presently show. Prof. Poscoe too in his Elementary 

 Chemistry, 1871, describes cyanogen in terms which certainly have a tendency 

 to keep it so classified. The special grounds upon which cyanogen is classed 

 with these radicals are, I believe, as follows : — 



1st. That it and its hydride combine directly with the least oxidizable 

 metals generally, as gold and silver. 



