Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/175

 If chloride of spiroil be briskly heated, the melted mass gradually becomes darker, and a slight carbonaceous residue remains.

No other products besides muriatic acid and chloride of spiroil are formed.

Pure chloride of spiroil possesses a peculiar and somewhat aromatic odour, which nevertheless has much similarity to the smell of diluted prussic acid. Its boiling point does not appear to exceed that of water. It is inflammable, and burns with a greenish sooty flame.

It is quite insoluble in water.

When it is boiled with water it evaporates entirely; by this operation not the slightest trace of muriatic acid is formed. Neither dry nor moist air has any action on it. Chloride of spiroil is easily soluble in æther and alcohol.

The alcoholic solution gives with acetate of copper a greenish yellow precipitate; salts of lead are precipitated yellow. Baryta water immediately separates chloride of spiroil from the alcoholic solution, and uniting with it a yellow precipitate falls.

Chloride of spiroil forms yellow, neutral, difficultly soluble compounds with the alkalies. The salts of iron are also coloured blueish black by the same.

In the combinations of chloride of spiroil with the metallic oxides and the alkalies, it appears to combine unaltered, as it may again be obtained unaltered when these compounds are decomposed by an acid.

Nitrate of silver causes a scarcely perceptible milkiness in the filtered solutions of the alkaline compounds which have been decomposed by nitric acid. 0·780 grm. of chloride of spiroil treated in the above-mentioned way gave 0·09 grm. chloride of silver, therefore scarcely 0·02 grm. chlorine. This small amount of chlorine was no doubt due to the presence of muriatic acid, as from 0·628 grm. hydrospiroilic acid 0·795 grm. of chloride of spiroil was obtained; therefore at least 0·157 grm. chlorine must have been taken up.

If chloride of spiroil be melted with potassium by the application of a very gentle heat, violent evolution of heat and light suddenly takes place. A portion of the chloride of spiroil is decomposed thereby; carbon is deposited, whilst another portion unites with the potash which has been formed. If the remaining mass be dissolved in water, and the solution decomposed by nitric acid, pure chloride of spiroil is precipitated. If this same fluid be filtered, nitrate of silver gives a large precipitate of chloride of silver. If the neutral solution of the chlorospiroilide be slowly evaporated, yellow tasteless crystals are obtained which are insoluble in alcohol. If these crystals be heated in a platinum crucible, heat and fight are evolved long before the crucible is red hot. The mass blackens, and by the continued application of heat is converted into pure chloride of potassium, in the aqueous solution of which not the