Page:The American journal of science, series 3, volume 49.djvu/71

Rh It is evident from all the data which have been exhibited in the preceding tables, that no trace of the applicability of the Schroeder-Le Chatelier law is to be found. It may, now, be urged that in our definition of solubility as the number of molecules of dissolved substance contained in 100 molecules of the solution, the value of the molecular mass of the dissolved substance has rather arbitrarily been assumed to be equal to that which it has in the gaseous condition, although nothing positive in regard to the real size of the molecule in the dissolved state is known; if the molecular mass of the substance in the gaseous state be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc., when it is in solution, the number, expressing the solubility in the manner here adopted, must be changed correspondingly. But even if our knowledge of the molecular state of salts dissolved in organic liquids was sufficient to permit of the introduction of this correction, its amount would not be large enough to account for the very considerable differences in solubility of even the same salt in different, yet chemically similar, organic solvents, as any one can convince himself by a simple calculation. We conclude then, that the law enunciated by Schroeder, and by Le Chatelier, although approximately true for the cases investigated by them, is not applicable to the case of inorganic salts in normal organic solvents.

Plymouth meteorite was found in the year 1893 by Mr. John Jefferson Kyser, while plowing in a field on his farm about five miles southwest of the town of Plymouth, Marshall County, Indiana. Mr. Kyser had, about the year 1872, found in the same field another, larger mass of the same iron. This mass was pear-shaped, about four feet in length by three feet in its widest diameter, narrowing to six or eight inches at its upper end. It lay for a year or two so near the surface of the ground as to be seriously annoying in plowing the field. On that account, Mr. Kyser, aided by his son, dug a deep hole by the side of the mass and buried it to the depth of one and one- half to two feet beneath the surface, where it should thence- forth do no more damage.

The account of this I had last June from the son, Mr. John M. Kyser, now city clerk of Plymouth. Mr. Kyser well remembers the circumstance of the finding of the large piece and assisting his father in burying the same; and he further