322 Report of the Depaetment of Chemistry of the 



From the acid preparations which he had isolated, he prepared 

 some silver salts for which he proposed the following formulas, viz : 



Product A, C 4 Hi2Ag5P 3 0i5. 

 Product B, C 6 H 10 Ag7P4Oi7. 

 Product C, C 4 H 1 oAg5P 3 1 3. 



In a more recent publication by the same author 4 are reported 

 the analyses of a few more amorphous silver salts prepared, by a 

 method similar to the one used before, from cottonseed meal and 

 wheat bran. It is claimed that these compounds are identical, 

 i.e., they are salts of the same acid, as shown by their having the same 

 percentage composition, the same solubility, etc. This time, how- 

 ever, these amorphous compounds are alleged to be salts of an acid 

 of the formula C12H41P9O42 and which formula is proposed as the 

 correct one for the substance known as inosite phosphoric acid or 

 phytic acid. 



Since these results did not harmonize with our earlier findings 

 in respect to cottonseed meal Mr. Rather suggests that the care- 

 fully purified and recrystallized barium salts which we had analyzed 

 must have contained " iron, aluminum, lime and magnesia " — this 

 being the more likely since we had presented no analytical data to 

 show that these inorganic substances were absent. Evidently Mr. 

 Rather had not read our publication very carefully, otherwise he 

 might have noticed that we stated, concerning the barium salts, that, 

 " metals other than barium were absent." 6 



In the present paper we wish to refer to the work on cottonseed 

 meal only, reserving for a later communication proofs to show 

 that the results reported by Rather are just as inapplicable to the 

 organic phosphorus compound of wheat bran as they are to the acid 

 existing in cottonseed meal. 



Since our earlier work had shown that the organic phosphoric 

 acid of cottonseed meal gave barium salts which crystallized readily 

 and which could be easily purified by repeated recrystallizations 

 and since it is generally recognized that crystalline substances are 

 more suitable for the identification of chemical compounds than 

 amorphous bodies we have repeated our former work on cotton- 

 seed meal in the hope of establishing more definitely the composi- 

 tion of the organic phosphoric acid present in this material. 



From 25 pounds of cottonseed meal we obtained, after recrystal- 

 lizing eleven times, 69 grams of the barium salt. So far as com- 

 position, crystal-form and reactions are concerned this product 

 was identical with the salts previously described. Further recrystal- 



1 J. Am. Chem. Soc. 35:890, 1913, and Texas Agr. Exp. Sta., Bull. 156, 1913. 

 6 Loc. ell, p. 321 aud p. 11. 



