Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/176

 slightest alkaline reaction is visible. All these experiments seem to confirm the above-mentioned view, that chloride of spiroil combines without decomposition with the bases of salts.

The question may here be asked, whether the acid properties of the chloride of spiroil arise from chlorine, and whether such a chloracid (in the same way as oxyacids) could combine with them?

Till now no such combinations were known, and therefore perhaps it might be simpler to state that when chloride of spiroil is brought together with a metallic oxide, 4 eqs. of a metallic chloride and 1 of a spiroilate are formed. If an acid be added to the solution of these salts, chloride of spiroil is again thrown down and a corresponding metallic salt formed. In the same manner one may imagine double combinations, consisting of a metallic chloride and a salt of a bromacid, from which on the addition of another acid chloride of bromine might be separated.

0.327 grm. of fused chloride of spiroil yielded

0.327 grm. chloride of spiroil dissolved in potash entirely free from chlorine, the solution evaporated, and the dry residue heated in a platinum crucible yielded, after the mass which had been heated was dissolved in water and saturated with nitric acid, 0.306 fused chloride of silver = .754 chlorine.

1 eq. of chloride of spiroil therefore consists of

It has been stated that 0.628 grm. hydrospiroilic acid contained 0.795 chloride of spiroil. According to the established eq. 111.56 hydrospiroil should yield 146.03 chloride of spiroil:

11.56111.56 [sic] : 146.03 = 0.628 : 0.790.

Bromide of Spiroil.

Bromide of spiroil is easiest obtained by pouring bromine upon hydrospiroilic acid in a deep glass: hydrobromic acid is immediately evolved, the mixture becomes perceptibly warm, and at last solidifies into a greyish white crystalline mass. Bromide of spiroil may also be easily