84 
MISCELLANY. 
chlorhydrate of ammonia, the first crystallizes, and the last remains in 
the mother waters. 
5. Ammonia decomposes entirely with heat the double sulphate of 
these two vegetable alkalies ; but the combination remains unaffected, 
if, during the evaporation, the ammonia is not in too great an excess. 
Bui. de VJlcad, Roy. des Sciences de Brux., et Journ. de Chimie. 
Sulphuret of Nitrogen. — M. Soubeiran announced the discovery which 
he had made of sulphuret of nitrogen. It was obtained by acting upon 
chloride of sulphur with ammoniacal gas, taking care to have the am- 
monia in excess and to prevent any increase of temperature. The product 
of this operation is a mixture of chlorhydrate of ammonia and sulphuret 
of nitrogen, which may be separated by means of water. This new 
compound is of a yellow color, inodorous and of an acrid taste ; it is so- 
luble in alcohol and ether, nearly insoluble in water, but in it is slowly 
changed into hyposulphate of ammonia. It is decomposed explosively 
by the sudden application of heat, or by percussion. When mixed with 
glass it decomposes tranquilly, giving off nitrogen and sulphur; it is 
composed of one proportion of azote and three proportions of sulphur. 
Journ. de Fharmacie. 
Mercury in the Saliva during Ptyalisrn. — M. Gmelin, of Heidelberg, 
reports the following experiments upon this subject. {Annalen der Phy- 
sik und Chemie. ) 
Experiment 1. The subject who afforded the saliva of this experiment, 
had for a long time been rubbed with the blue ointment, without taking 
mercury by the mouth ; after the frictions had been omitted for several 
days, the fluid was collected for trial. It was brownish, turbid, and con- 
tained large flocculi of mucus. Heated by a salt water bath, it underwent 
no other change than the separation of the mucus in a more consistent 
state. It therefore could not contain albumen. Two pounds of this 
saliva were evaporated to dryness, at the same time adding nitric acid 
gradually. The residuum was then treated by nitric acid and evaporated 
again, but not to complete dryness. During the solution of the pale yel- 
low residue in water, a fatty substance in notable quantity was separated, 
which when cold was solid, but of oily consistence at a low degree of 
heat. Perhaps this fatty matter is the same as that which the saliva of 
a healthy man afforded upon a former occasion, {Tiedemann $r Gmelin, 
Digestion, p. 11,) with the sole alteration produced by nitric acid. The 
watery solution, separated from the fatty substance by filtration, afforded, 
when a current of sulphuretted hydrogen was passed through it, a preci- 
pitate of sulphur, induced by the presence of the nitric acid : this preci- 
pitate had a brownish yellow color. It was collected upon a filter, 
washed, placed in a watch glass, evaporated with nitromuriatic acid, 
