MOLECULAR CONSTITUTION OF THE ORGANIC BASES. 
397 
Chloride of Diethylammonium 
Chloride of Triethylamraonium 
(C4 
H 
(C 4 H5)3 
N Cl. 
•N Cl. 
Chloride of Tetrethylammonium .... (C4 115)4 NCI. 
The idea of an ammonium once adopted, we have to follow it out in as general a 
form as possible, and hence I perfectly agree with those chemists who consider the 
salts of Reiset’s second base as compounds of the Platammonium (Platosammonium) 
the ammoniosulphate of silver as sulphate of argentammonium, 
JjNSO,, 
and the ammoniochloride of copper as chloride of cuprammonium, 
H3 
Cu 
■N Cl. 
But I would go farther and advocate an analogous constitution for a great number of 
mercury-compounds, which are now usually considered in a different way. Since 
the careful experiments of Sir Robert Kane have pointed out the true composition 
of the white precipitate, chemists are in the habit of viewing this substance as a com- 
pound of chloride and amide of mercury. 
NCI, 
HgH2N,HgCl; 
it may be viewed with equal justice as chloride of dimercurammonium, 
H2 
and would correspond in this form to the chloride of diethylammonium ; dimercur- 
ammonium, intimately combined with protoxide of mercury, may be assumed in all 
the various salts of M. Millon’s mercury-base. It would be interesting experiment- 
ally to follow out in detail the analogy of the mercury-compounds with the series of 
ethyl bases. Even now the materials at our disposal appear to point to the exist- 
ence of the other terms. In Mitscherlich’s garnet-octohedrons we might perceive a 
chloride of mercurammonium, 
H3 
Hg 
jN Cl, 
while Plantamour’s nitride of mercury presents itself as trimercuramine, Hgg N ; and 
the red compound obtained by Mitscherlich on heating the white precipitate, might 
be viewed as a combination of chloride of mercury with chloride of tetramercurara- 
monium, 
Hg4NCl, HgCl. 
3 F 
MDCCCLI. 
