Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 7.djvu/461



to preface my remarks upon this subject by the statement that they are entirely of a theoretical nature, and therefore unsupported by the results of that kind of experimental research, the details of which it will be remembered have hitherto constantly formed the groundwork of those previous papers of mine read before you; however, for this once I must beg your kind indulgence for a hearing upon that which, if it has any value, owes it to chemical researches and chemical records, long since accumulated by other chemists.

Presuming then upon your indulgence, I will at once state that the subject of this paper is the true position of a certain compound body among the elements as deducible from its known chemical reactions, that now assigned to it being, I think, incorrect.

The great importance of interpreting those facts correctly by which we compare our imitative with our real elements, is so obvious to those anxious to apprehend more of the true nature of the elements than at present we do, that I need not excuse myself for bringing such a matter as this before you.

The substance, the supposed position of which I take exception to, is cyanogen, a compound as you are aware of carbon and nitrogen in equivalent quantities. It and a number of other compounds into which it enters are now classed indiscriminately and collectively with the chlorine group as salt radicals, but to cyanogen itself "par excellence" is attributed this character.

That this is in reality the position assigned to cyanogen is indisputable. Brand and Taylor in their excellent work on chemistry, designate this substance as a compound radical and associate it with chlorine, bromine, and iodine for reasons I shall presently show. Prof. Roscoe too in his Elementary Chemistry, 1871, describes cyanogen in terms which certainly have a tendency to keep it so classified. The special grounds upon which cyanogen is classed with these radicals are, I believe, as follows:—