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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 54 



It was subsequently shown by Berzelius that calcium carbonate pre- 

 pared by this method retains traces of water even at 200°, and that 

 minute quantities of chloride are also held by it. These sources of error 

 are, however, in opposite directions, since one would tend to diminish 

 and the other to increase the weight of residue. 



In the same paper there are also two direct estimations of carbonic 

 acid in pure Iceland spar, which correspond to the following percentages 



of lime : 



56.00 

 56.02 



Mean, 56.01, ± .007 



In a still later paper ' the same investigators give another series of 

 results based upon the ignition of Iceland spar. The impurities were 

 carefully estimated, and the percentages of lime are suitably corrected : 



Mean, 50.028, ± .0047 



Hence Ca = 40.068. 



Six years later Erdmann and Marchand ^ published one more result 

 upon the ignition of calcium carbonate. They found that the compound 

 began giving off carbon dioxide below the temperature at which their 

 previous samples had been dried, or about 200°, and that, on the other 

 hand, traces of the dioxide were retained by the lime after ignition. 

 These two errors do not compensate each other, since both tend to raise 

 the percentage of lime. In the one experiment now under consideration 

 these errors were accurately estimated, and the needful corrections were 

 applied to the final result. The percentage of residual lime in this case 

 was 55.998. This agrees tolerably well with the figures found in the 

 direct estimation of carbonic acid, and, if combined with those two, gives 

 a mean for all three of 56.006, ±.0043. 



Hence Ca = 40.018. 



Herzfeld,^ in his determinations of atomic weight, made use of arti- 

 ficial calcium carbonate. The lime was prepared by ignition of the 

 oxalate, and then converted into bicarbonate by treatment with solid 



1 .Journ. prakt. Chem., 31, 269. 1844. 

 - .loum. prakt. Chem. , 50, 237. 1S50. 

 ^ Zeitschr. Ver. Rlibenzucker Industrie, 47, 497. 



1897. Partly reproduced in Ber., 34, 559. 1904. 



