OEGANIC COMPOUNDS CONTAINING BOEON. 
179 
finger may be held in it for some time without much inconvenience. Under these 
circumstances partial oxidation only takes place, and it is to the products thus formed 
that the peculiar pungent odour of boric ethide and boric methide is due. When, on 
the other hand, these bodies issue into the air more rapidly, the lambent blue and nearly 
cold flame changes to the green and hot flame above mentioned. I have not examined 
the spectra of the two differently coloured flames from the same compound, but they 
doubtless present a widely different appearance, thus affording another instance of the 
dependence of the spectra of bodies upon temperature, — a phenomenon to which 
Dr. Ttxdall and myself recently called attention in the case of lithium 
Boric methide is not acted upon by bin oxide of nitrogen or by iodine. Solution of 
bichromate of potash scarcely affects it, hut the addition of concentrated sulphuric acid 
at once determines the reduction of the chromic acid. When boric methide is allowed 
to bubble through water into chlorine, each bubble burns explosively with a bright flash 
of light and the separation of carbon. It has no tendency to unite with acids. Con- 
centrated sulphuric acid has no action upon it ; when mixed with hydriodic acid gas, it 
suffers no change ; but, on the other hand, it is freely absorbed by solutions of the fixed 
alkalies, and by ammonia. If a very rapid current of the gas, mixed with half its volume 
of marsh -gas, be passed through a stratum of strong solution of ammonia only half an 
inch deep, not a trace of boric methide escapes absorption. 
Ammonia-Boric Methide. 
When dry ammoniacal gas is mixed with an equal volume of dry boric methide, both 
gases instantly disappear with the evolution of a considerable amount of heat, and the 
production of a white, volatile, crystalline compound. The latter is also formed when 
boric methide is passed into solution of ammonia. The colourless liquid stratum which 
forms upon the surface soon solidifies when it is placed over sulphuric acid in vacuo. 
A quantity of the compound obtained by this latter process was purified hy solution in 
ether and subsequent recrystallization. On being submitted to analysis, it yielded the 
following results : — 
I. •2652 grm., burnt with oxide of copper, gave *4862 grm. carbonic acid and -401 
grm. water. 
II. •2809 grm. gave •SIOS grm. carbonic acid and •4217 grm. water. 
III. -2124 grm., decomposed by dilute hydrochloric acid in a stream of carbonic acid, 
gave a solution of chloride of ammonium, which, treated in the usual manner, yielded 
•6450 grm. of chloride of platinum and ammonium. 
These numbers lead to the formula 
NH3 + B(C2H3)3, 
as is seen from the following comparison of calculated numbers with experimental 
results : — 
* Philosophical Magazine, S. 4. vol. xxii. p. 472. 
2 A 2 
