ORGANIC BODIES CONTAINING METALS. 
437 
soon becomes coloured red from the separation of free iodine; after several hours’ 
exposure this coloration disappears, and a small quantity of the yellow iodide of 
mercury subsides to the bottom of the liquid : after the action of sunlight for several 
days, the bulk of the mercury is observed to have considerably diminished, and white 
ciystals begin to be deposited around the sides of the glass vessel : finally, after about 
a week’s exposure, the liquid solidifies to a colourless crystalline mass: when this is 
digested with ether, the new compound dissolves, and is thus separated from metallic 
mercury, and from the small portion of iodide of mercury which is collaterally 
formed. Only a very small quantity of gas is evolved during the formation of the 
white crystalline compound. By spontaneous evaporation the ethereal solution soli- 
difies to a mass of minute colourless crystalline scales : these, dried in vacuo and sub- 
mitted to analysis, yielded the following numbers : — 
I. •3170 grm. dissolved in alcohol and treated with nitrate of silver, gave •2142 
grm. iodide of silver. 
II. '6205 grm. burnt with oxide of copper, gave *0813 grm. carbonic acid, *0505 
grm. water, and ‘5960 grm. protoiodide of mercury. The iodide of mercury, a small 
portion of which was decomposed into metallic mercury and periodide, collected 
as an incrustation at the front end of the combustion-tube, about a couple of 
inches of which had been left empty for this purpose, and projected from the furnace, 
the heat being so regulated that none of the iodide passed into the chloride of calcium 
tube, whilst none of the watery vapour condensed in the combustion-tube. When 
the analysis was concluded, the weight of the protoiodide of mercury, mixed with 
traces of periodide and metallic mercury, was determined by cutting off the part of 
the combustion-tube containing it, and ascertaining its weight before and after the 
iodide was removed. The numbers obtained agree very closely with the formula 
C2H3Hgl, 
which requires the following values 
: — 
Calculated. 
A 
Found. 
A 
( 
I. II. 
2 equivs. Carbon . . . 
12 
3-51 
3-57 
3 equivs. Hydrogen . . 
3 
•88 
•90 
1 equiv. Mercury 
200 
58-51 
>96-05 
1 equiv. Iodine . . . 
126-84 
37-10 
36-56J 
341-84 
100-00 
100-52 
This compound is therefore evidently the iodide of a new organo-metallic body, 
consisting of one atom of methyl and one atom of mercury, and for which I propose 
the name hydrargyromethyliuni'. it is formed by the direct union of one atom of 
mercury with one atom of iodide of methyl, under the influence of light, 
C, H, II 
n,: }=C.H3Hgl. 
