Ampere Berzelius

According to H. Lose, the dry crystals are not deliquescent J. J. Berzelius says they are. The crystals have a negative double refraction. Ammonium hydrofluoride volatilizes completely when heated. According to H. Rose, when ammonium hydrolluoride is mixed with silica or a silicate and calcined, the silicate is more readily decomposed than if hydrofluoric acid had been used. On electrolysis with a current of 5 amperes, 0. Ruff and E. Geisel9 obtained fluorine. 

The ammonium theory.—In the ammonium theory of H. Davy, A. M. Ampere, and J. J. Berzelius, it was assumed. that the ammonium compounds contain a metallic radicle, NH4 (4.31,38), which may replace potassium, sodium, etc., in different salts. When ammonia unites with hydrogen chloride, the NH4-radicle is formed which unites with chlorine to form ammonium chloride in the same way that potassium united with chlorine forms potassium chloride. The ammonium theory thus corresponds with the ethyl theory of J. J. Berzelius, and J. von Liebig. The nitrogen is assumed to be quinquevalent, and this is in harmony with the work of V. Meyer and M. T. Lecco, A. Ladenburg, and W. Lossen on the quaternary ammonium baseb, and with the isomorphism of the ammonium and the potassium salts. 

History.—The name ammonium is assigned to the radical NH4, supposed to be present in the so-called ammonium-amalgam. This substance was first prepared by Sebeck by electrolyzing ammonium salts in contact with mercury, and later by Berzelius and Pontin. Ampere regarded ammonia as the oxide of a metallic-like substance related to the alkalies.2... 

Mitscherlich, from the isomorphism of potassium and ammonium salts, supposed that the latter contain a quantity of ammonia equivalent to the potassium oxide in the first and so much water that its oxygen is double that in the potassium oxide. In 1833 he told Berzelius that he assumed, with Ampere (see p. 48), that ammonium oxide is formed from i equiv. of ammonia and i equiv. of water N H 0=2NH + H 0. Berzelius recognised the analogy between potassium (K = 3q x 2) and ammonium (N H ) in salts, and he extended the analogy to ether and esters by assuming the radical C Hi ... 

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