MOLECULAR CONSTITUTION OF THE ORGANIC BASES. 
363 
used this process again, after I had found that digestion with freshly precipitated 
protoxide of silver produces at once the same effect. The oxide is added in small 
proportions to the solution of the iodide, which is gently heated ; it is immediately 
converted into yellow iodide of silver, which assumes a white colour on stirring, as 
long as any undecomposed iodide is in solution. Gradually the yellow colour be- 
comes permanent, and the decomposition is complete as soon as an excess of un- 
changed oxide becomes perceptible by its colour. 
On filtering off the silver-precipitate, a clear and colourless liquid is obtained, 
which contains the isolated base in solution. It is of a powerfully alkaline reaction, 
which manifests itself, not only in its deportment with vegetable colours, but also in 
its possessing the pungent bitterness of quinine ; the solution, when strongly con- 
centrated, not only burns the tongue, but it acts upon the epidermis, which it de- 
stroys like caustic potassa or soda. On rubbing a solution of the oxide between the 
fingers, the well-known sensation produced by the fixed alkalies under the same cir- 
cumstances is felt, and we perceive moreover the same peculiar odour. 
Oxide of tetrethylammonium saponifies the fats as readily as potassa. The expe- 
riment was made with cocoa-nut oil, which after half an hour’s ebullition with the 
new alkali was converted into a beautiful soft soap, having the appearance of an 
ordinary potassa-soap. This soap washes very well. 
I have traced the analogy of the new body with potassa in many other directions. 
Chemists recollect the remarkable effect produced by ebullition with potassa in cer- 
tain nitrogenous substances. It was by this proeess that Dr. Fownes, the discoverer 
of this reaction, converted furfuramide into the isomeric alkaloid, I found 
that boiling with oxide of tetrethylammonium effects this molecular change as 
rapidly as potassa. 
Like potassa it decomposes oxalic ether into oxalic acid and alcohol, and evolves 
ammonia from ammonia-salts, even in the cold. It may be substituted for potassa 
in Trommer’s well-known sugar-test. Copper-solutions, mixed with either cane- or 
grape-sugar, yield on addition of oxide of tetrethylammonium, a light-blue precipi- 
tate of the hydrate of the protoxide, which redissolves in an excess of the base, 
forming a deep blue solution, with a shade of green ; on ebullition the cane-sugar 
solution deposits a greenish precipitate, which is only slowly and always very incom- 
pletely converted into suboxide of copper. In the presence of grape-sugar the 
reduction ensues instantaneously on application of heat. 
The reactions of the new base with metallic oxides assimilate this compound as 
nearly as possible to the fixed caustic alkalies. The following table exhibits the re- 
actions of this body. 
_ . , fWhite precipitate of the hydrate of the earth, insoluble in 
Barium-salts . . . . ^ ^ ^ , 
L an excess or the base. 
fWhite precipitate of the hydrate of the earth, insoluble in 
L an excess of the base. 
Strontium-salts . . 
