40 



VELOCITY OF REACTIONS 



hydrochloric acid present and thereby diminishes 

 the conductivity just as the addition of a base, e.g. 

 ammonia, would do. Now peptone is a so-called 

 amphoteric electrolyte, which acts both as an acid 

 and as a base. But its acid character is much 

 stronger than the basic one, which is extremely 

 weak. Therefore, the salts of peptone with acids 

 are hydrolysed in a very high degree. With a 

 great excess of acid (HC1), as for the parts of the 

 peptone first formed, the binding may be nearly 

 complete, but the salt of the last parts is highly 

 hydrolysed, and a great deal of them, and therefore 

 also of the acid, remains in a free state. Con- 

 sequently, the values of A are lower than those 

 given by the hypothesis on which the calculation 

 of the quantity of peptone formed is based. Even 

 the neutralization of the acid hampers the reaction 

 (cf. p. 32). 



If we now compare the values of A for equal 

 values of qt in the four different series, we find that 

 A is equal in the four cases, as is seen from the 

 following table : 



From this 'we observe that the rule of Schutz 



