110 DIVERS AND HAGA ON REDUCTION 



Two estimations were made of the quantity of hydroxyamine in 

 the solution, after this had been heated with hydrochloric acid. Silver 

 nitrite, 0.6926 gram, was found, by titration with iodine, to have 

 yielded about one-sixth of its nitrogen as hydroxyamine; while, in 

 another case, 0.0644 gram yielded as much as three-elevenths of its 

 nitrogen in this form. 



Merciirous nitrite, supposed not to exist, but which will be de- 

 scribed in a future communication, has been prepared by the authors, 

 and found also to yield hydroxyamine when treated with hydrogen 

 sulphide. But this salt forms dense, hard crystals, and is exceedingly 

 insoluble in water, and thus becomes difficult to decompose fully, even 

 by soluble chlorides, including hydrochloric acid. It, accordingly, 

 resists for a long time complete decomposition by hydrogen sulphide, 

 so that when that which appears to be only the mercury sulphide and 

 sulphur precipitate is boiled with water, a nitrous smell is observed, 

 due, no doubt, to decomposition of some residual nitrite. 



The green solution prepared by mixing alkali nitrite with cop- 

 per sulphate also yields hydroxyamine when treated with hydrogen 

 sulphide. 



It will hence be seen that those nitrites of which the metals, — 

 mercury, silver, copper, — have especially marked affinities for nitrogen, 

 and which nitrites, therefore, have a certain stability in presence of 

 acids, are capable of being reduced to hydroxyamine. In large part, 

 indeed, even these nitrites are decomposed by the hydrogen sulphide, 

 so as to yield only tlie products of the decomposition of this acid by 

 water and additional hydrogen sulphide; but the rest appears to act as 

 follows : — 



Ag N0.,+ 211, S ^ Ag iV j^/^ -f //,, O + 2S 

 and 2Ag N | ^/^ + II, S = Ag, S 4- 2 HiV j^/^ 



