Note 49 — Chapter XIX · PHOSPHORUS AND THE OTHER ELEMENTS OF THE FIFTH GROUP
George Kamensky translation
When the vapours of vanadium oxychloride are heated with zinc in a closed tube at 400°, they lose a portion of their chlorine and form a green crystalline mass of sp. gr. 2·88, which is deliquescent in air and has the composition VOCl2. Only its vapour density is unknown, and it would be extremely important to determine whether its molecular composition is that given above, or whether it corresponds with the formula V2O2Cl4. Another less volatile oxychloride, VOCl, is formed with it as a brown insoluble substance, which is, however, soluble in nitric acid like the preceding. Roscoe obtained a still less chlorinated substance, namely, (VO)2Cl; but it may only consist of a mixture of VO and VOCl. At all events, we here find a graduated series such as is met with in the compounds of very few other elements.