Chemistry and Physics. 285 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



I. Chemistry and Physics. 



1. Carbon Monosulphide. — This compound, which is analogous 

 to carbon monoxide, and which would be expected to be a gas, 

 was described by Sidot in 18*72 as a remarkably stable red 

 powder produced by the action of light upon carbon disulphide. 

 Sir James Dewar and H. O. Jones have now, for the first time, 

 made the compound by the use of a chemical double decomposi- 

 tion, using for the purpose nickel carbonyl and thiophosgene. 

 These react in the presence of a solvent, such as dry ether, car- 

 bon tetrachloride or chloroform, apparently according to the 

 equation 



Ni(CO), + CSCU = NiCI, + 4C0 + CS, 



or rather according to a multiple of this equation, since the 

 product is evidently a polymer (CS)^., because it is a solid rather 

 than a gas. The product thus obtained agrees with Sidot's 

 product in some respects, but it differs from it in some ways. It 

 is a brown powder having a specific gravity of 1*6, but after 

 compression into a solid block it gave the value 1"83. It is prac- 

 tically insoluble in alcohol, ether, benzene, and petroleum ether ; 

 it is slightly soluble in carbon disulphide, ethylene dibromide, 

 nitrobenzene, naphthalene and phenol, giving deeply colored, 

 x-eddish brown solutions. It is not soluble in dilute sulphuric 

 acid, but in the concentrated acid it dissolves, forming a brown- 

 ish purple solution, the color of which is only slowly destroyed 

 at the boiling point of the acid. Upon dilution with water the 

 solution in sulphuric acid gives a precipitate of the unaltered 

 compound. It dissolves in concentrated nitric acid at ordinary 

 temperature and the color of the solution is only destroyed by 

 long heating. It dissolves in aqueous or alcoholic solutions of 

 ammonia, ammonium sulphide, caustic potash and potassium sul- 

 phide, giving deep brown solutions from which acids precipitate 

 it apparently unchanged. When the solid was heated in a high 

 vacuum practically no change took place below 360° C. ; at a red 

 heat carbon disulphide was given off, but even after long heating 

 at this temperature the residue, consisting largely of carbon, 

 still contained a considerable amount of sulphur. On heating 

 the carbon monosulphide in a current of dry hydrogen, hydrogen 

 sulphide was produced and the residue was almost free from sul- 

 phur. 



In a subsequent communication the same authors have described 

 the preparation of what appears to be carbon monosulphide by 

 the action of the silent electric discharge upon carbon disulphide 

 vapor at the temperature of liquid air. At this low temperature 

 a very low boiling, unpolymerized carbon monosulphide seems to 



