Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/75

Rh pressure, temperature, and volume among gases find their equivalents in the phenomena exhibited by solutions. In Avogadro's law we learn that equal volumes of gases, under like conditions of temperature and pressure, contain equal numbers of molecules. According to the new generalizations, equal volumes of different solutions, if they exert the same osmotic pressure, also contain equal numbers of molecules. The parallelism is perfect. With these relations the freezing- and boiling-point phenomena are directly connected.

But, both for gases and for solutions some apparent anomalies existed. Certain compounds, when vaporized, seemed not to conform to Avogadro's law, and called for explanation. This proved to be simple, and was supplied by the fact that the anomalous compound, as such, did not exist as vapor, but was split up, dissociated, into other things. For instance, ammonium chloride, above a certain temperature, is decomposed into a mixture of two gases—hydrochloric acid and ammonia—which, on cooling, reunite and reproduce the original compound. Twice as much vapor as is required by theory, and specifically half as heavy, is produced by this transformation, which is only one of a large class, all well understood.

In the case of solutions it was found that certain compounds, notably the acids, alkalies, and metallic salts, caused a depression of freezing point which was twice as great as ought to be expected. This fact was illuminated by the phenomena observed in gases, and soon it was seen that here too a splitting up of molecules, a true dissociation, occurred. These anomalous solutions, moreover, were electrolytes—that is, they conducted electricity and underwent electrolytic decompositions—while normal substances, especially solutions of carbon compounds, such as sugar, were not.

Van t'Hoff's discoveries went far, but one more step was needed, and this was taken by Arrhenius in 1888. Electrolytic compounds, when dissolved, are actually dissociated into their ions, partially so in a strong solution, entirely so in one which is infinitely dilute, a statement which leads to some extraordinary conclusions. For instance, the ions of common salt are sodium and chlorine. In a dilute solution the salt itself ceases to exist, while atoms of sodium and atoms of chlorine wander about, chemically separated from each other but still in equilibrium. Sodium sulphate may be regarded as made up of two parts—sodium and an acid radicle which contains one atom of sulphur to four of oxygen—and these parts, its ions, are severed apart during solution to move about independent of each other.

This theory of Arrhenius, the theory of electrolytic dissociation, is supported by many facts, and fits in well with the kinetic theory