532 
DE. A. W. HOFMAXX ON THE PHOSPHOErS-BASES. 
PHOSPHOEHS-AESENIC-GEOrP. 
PHOSPHARSO^AUM-SALTS. 
Salt of Ethylene-hexethylphospharsonium 
(aH,)3AsJ 
Br,. 
AESENIC-NITEOGEX-GEOUP. 
ARSAilMOXIUM-SALTS. 
CL,. 
The experiments described in the preceding pages refer almost exclusively to the 
study of compounds belonging either to the phosphorus-series or to the phosphoins- 
nitrogen-series. Numerous analogous terms of the nitrogen-series, monatomic as n'ell 
as diatomic, with which I have become acquainted in the course of my researches, have 
been left unnoticed in this memoir. I propose to examine the nitrogen-bodies in a 
special memoir ; and I may here only remark that these substances, although differing 
in several points, nevertheless so closely imitate, in their general deportment, the corre- 
sponding terms of the phosphorus-series, that the picture which in the preceding pages 
I have endeavoured to delineate of the phosphorus-compounds, illustrates, in a gi'eat mea- 
sure, the deportment of the nitrogen-bodies. We meet here with the peculiar case of 
the study of the phosphorus-group being in advance of that of the nitrogen-series, whilst 
generally the investigation of the phosphorus-compounds was taken in hand only after 
inquiries in the nitrogen-series had furnished the prototypes to be copied. 
In conclusion, a few words about the further development of which the experiments 
described appear to be capable, and about the dii’ection in which I propose to pumie tlie 
opened track. 
Conceived in its simplest form, the transition from the series of monatomic to that of 
diatomic bases may be referred to the introduction of a monochlorinated or monobromi- 
nated alcohol-radical into the ammonium-nucleus, the chlorine or bromine thus inserted 
furnishing the point of attack for a second molecule of ammonia. If in bromide of 
ethylammonium we imagine 1 equiv. of hydrogen in ethyl replaced by bromine, we 
arrive at the bromide of bromethyl-ammonium, which is capable of fixing a second mole- 
cule of ammonia, and of being thus converted into the dibroniide of ethylene-diammo- 
nium, the latent bromine becoming accessible to silver-salts, 
[(C2 Br) H3 N] Br+H3 N=[(C., HJ" H, NJ" Br,. 
The further elaboration of this reaction suggests two different methods for the con- 
struction of polyatomic bases of a higher order. In the first place, the number of 
ammonia-molecules to be incorporated in the new system may be increased by the 
gradually advancing bromination of the radical. By the fiuther brommation of ethyl 
Salt of Ethylene-triethylarsammonium 
,(C2H3)3As- 
H3 N 
