This combination is unknown.
41. Sulphuret of cerium.
This combination is also unknown.
SECTION 15.
EARTHY, ALKALINE, METALLIC AND
OTHER PHOSPHURETS.
Phosphorus like sulphur is capable of being combined with several of the earths and metals as well as with other bodies; but the combination is not so easily effected, and the products are less interesting than those of sulphur: from considerations of these circumstances together with those of the expence and danger in making experiments on phosphorus we may account for, this class of bodies being as yet imperfectly known.
Margraf in 1740 attempted to combine phosphorus with many of the metals; but his experiments were mostly unsuccessful.
Gengembre in 1783 endeavoured to unite phosphorus with the alkalies; in this he failed of success, but discovered the phosphuret of hydrogen, or the spontaneously inflammable gas now denominated phosphuretted hydrogen. (Journal de Physique, 1785.)
In 1786 Mr. Kirwan published some experiments on phosphuretted hydrogen, (Philos. Trans.); he ascertained that water impregnated with this gas had the property of precipitating various metals from their solutions.
The ingenious and indefatigable Pelletier has more merit than any other person in his investigations of the phosphurets. An important memoir of his on the manufacture of phosphorus in the large, is given in the Journal de Physique for 1785; in this he states that 4 or 5 lbs. sulphuric acid are commonly requisite for 6 lbs. calcined bones; and that from 18 lbs. calcined bones he obtained by the usual process, 12 oz. of phosphorus. In 1788 he read an essay on the phosphurets of gold, platina, silver, copper, iron, lead and tin. (An. de Chimie, 1—106). In 1790 he published an essay on the combinations of phosphorus with sulphur. (Ibid. 4—1). An additional memoir was published in 1792 on the same metallic phosphurets; and another on the phosphurets of mercury, zinc, bismuth, antimony, cobalt, nickel, manganese, arsenic and the other metals.
M. Raymond in the An. de Chimie, 1791, recommends, instead of potash, moist hydrate of lime and phosphorus in order to obtain phosphuretted hydrogen with greater facility; and in the same Annals for 1800 he asserts that water absorbs a considerable portion of phosphuretted hydrogen, and becomes capable of precipitating metals from their solutions in acids, and of forming phosphurets, in this respect resembling sulphuretted hydrogen.