300 Dr. Schunck on some Products 



potash^ soda, and ammonia, even when a reducing-agent, such 

 as protoxide of tin, is added ; but it is decomposed on being 

 heated with dry soda-lime, giving off alkaline fames having a 

 peculiar penetrating odour. The body B can hardly be dis- 

 tinguished by its external appearance from A, with which it 

 has also many properties in common ; but it is easily soluble in 

 caustic and carbonated alkalies, yielding yellow solutions, from 

 which it is precipitated by acids in brown flocks, The com- 

 pounds with baryta, lime, lead, silver, and copper prepared by 

 double decomposition are brown or yellow, and insoluble in 

 water. When treated with boiling nitric acid it behaves like 

 A, yielding also a product of decomposition crystallizing in 

 needles. The body C is a brown powder, which, on being 

 heated, burns without previously melting ; it is insoluble, like 

 A, in watery solutions of alkalies, and very little soluble in 

 alcohol alone, but easily soluble in an alcoholic solution of 

 soda. D resembles C in most of its properties, but differs 

 from it by its solubility in caustic and carbonated alkalies. 

 E is a reddish-brown powder, soluble in alkalies, and more 

 easily soluble in alcohol than C and D, but distinguished from 

 the others chiefly by its solubility in acetate of soda. 



The composition, however, of these bodies is a matter of 

 some interest, since it is only from a knowledge of their com- 

 position that any light can be thrown on the nature of this 

 curious process. I shall therefore proceed to give a short 

 account of the results yielded by the analysis of these products, 

 which will lead to a few r remarks regarding their mode of for- 

 mation and probable constitution. 



A. 



Of this body I made two series of analyses, the specimens 

 being prepared on different occasions. Unfortunately the 

 results to which they led did not harmonize, though no differ- 

 ence could be detected in the external properties of the two 

 specimens. 



I. 0*3275 grm. dried at 100° C, and burnt with oxide of 

 copper and oxygen, gave 0*9135 grm. carbonic acid and 0*2360 

 grm. water. 



0*5390 grm., burnt with soda-lime, gave 0*2470 grm. chlo- 

 ride of platinum and ammonium. " 



II. 0*3290 grm. of the same gave 0*9165 grm. carbonic acid 

 and 0*2335 grm. water. 



These numbers lead to the formula C 62 H 39 N0 8 , which 

 requires 



