1912] Anton Richard Rose ^y 



form neutral salts, acid salts, double salts, or acid double salts. The 

 acid, neutralized with alkali and evaporated to dryness, gives a 

 brownish horny mass; but if an alkali earth is also present, double 

 salts are formed, which crystallize in fine needles with eight mole- 

 cules of water. The magnesium salts crystallize in small and uni- 

 form spherules, while the copper salts form large and irregulär 

 spherules. Twin forms are frequently produced in the copper pre- 

 cipitates, resembling the globoids of which drawings appear in 

 Pfeffer's paper. These spheroid masses may be Clusters of needles 

 of approximately equal lengths, as is suggested by the regularly 

 pitted surfaces sometimes seen, and the term spherocrystal can 

 accordingly be applied to them. The copper Compounds are green ; 

 the others, as far as reported, are white. Occasionally a faint 

 pinkish cast has been noticed in pure preparations. 



The acid is miscible in all proportions with water. It is soluble 

 in alcohol but not in the other common lipoid solvents. Ether added 

 to an alcoholic Solution precipitates the acid in droplets. According 

 to Posternak, the acid-alkali and acid-magnesium salts are soluble 

 in alcohol and water. The double salts are soluble in water, forming 

 opalescent Solutions from which they are precipitated by chlorid and 

 acetate of potassium, redissolving if these are added in excess. The 

 decrease in solubility of the salts of inosite-phosphoric acid is in the 

 following Order : alkali, alkali earth and heavy metal. The magne- 

 sium Compounds are more soluble than the calcium salts and the 

 latter more soluble than those of barium or Strontium. The same 

 Order of solubility also holds for acid salts, double salts and normal 

 salts. These phytophosphates are more soluble in cold than in hot 

 water, and heating frequently precipitates them, even in the presence 

 of dilute acetic acid. This precipitation is largely influenced by 

 other Compounds in Solution, halogens and sulphates inhibiting, and 

 phosphates facilitating the reaction. Posternak noted that the 

 precipitates thus formed by heating were not always completely dis- 

 solved on cooling; also that the phytophosphates not readily soluble 

 in cold water were changed to more soluble forms by dissolving in 

 dilute acid and precipitating with alcohol. Dilute mineral acids are 

 solvents for all of these Compounds. Acetic acid does not dissolve 

 the salts of inosite-phosphoric acid with the heavy metals, barium. 



