os a) 
VIII.—On the Action of Phosphide of Sodium on Haloid Ethers and on the Salts 
of Tetrabenzyl-Phosphonium. By Professor Letts and N. CoLiz, Esq. 
The phosphines, or substances derived from phosphuretted hydrogen by 
the partial or complete replacement of its hydrogen by hydrocarbon radicals, 
have formed the subject of many valuable researches; but although their 
discovery was anterior to that of the compound ammonias, their study has made 
comparatively little progress. This is no doubt mainly due to the difficulty 
attending their preparation, a fact which is immediately forced upon the notice 
of any one who wishes to investigate them. 
In spite of the undoubted analogies existing between phosphines and 
amines, the methods employed for obtaining the former are, with one excep- 
tion, different from those by which the latter are usually prepared. The 
reason for this we may find in the great differences between the elements 
phosphorus and nitrogen—differences which are in many cases still apparent 
in their compounds. Thus, phosphorus forms no compound with carbon 
analogous to cyanogen ;-nor have any phosphorised bodies been obtained 
up to the present time analogous to the cyanides of hydrocarbon radicals. 
Neither has a phosphorised cyanic acid, (HCPO), nor its hydrocarbon salts 
been obtained. 
And we have another link wanting in the chain of analogies existing 
between nitrogen and phosphorus, in the absence of compounds of the latter 
element analogous to the nitro-bodies. Now, the amines are usually prepared 
by one or other of the four following processes :— 
1. Action of nascent hydrogen on the cyanide of a hydrocarbon radical. 
2. Action of caustic potash on the cyanate of a hydrocarbon radical. 
3. Action of nascent hydrogen on a nitro-body. 
4, Action of ammonia on a compound of a hydrocarbon radical with a 
halogen. 
For the reasons given above, the phosphines cannot be prepared by pro- 
cesses corresponding with the first three of these methods; but Hormann, 
in his masterly researches on these bodies, has shown that it is possible 
to directly replace hydrogen in phosphuretted hydrogen by hydrocarbon 
radicals, in a manner similar to that employed in the fourth of the above 
processes, 
But this is not the only process we possess for obtaining the phosphines, 
VOL. XXX. PART I. 2F 
