JACQUES LOEB 



743 



The effects obsefved in the solutions of MgCL may be only- 

 osmotic pressure eft'ects with little or no influence of an electrical 

 character. 



In the case of KCl and of Na2S04 it seems that the maximal 

 effect of e is reached at a very low concentration of the electrolyte, 

 near m/320 in the case of KCl and near m/960 in the case of Na2S04. 

 A further increase of the concentration to 100 times or more caused no 

 further increase in the value of the balancing concentration. This 

 would be intelligible on the assumption that the electrical effect is 

 of, the order of a saturation phenomenon; e.g., the saturation of the 

 membrane with electrolyte. Following ideas suggested in Langmuir's 

 papers,^ we may assume that electrolyte, collodion, and water ar- 



TABLE VIII. 



range themselves in the collodion membrane in a definite pattern or 

 space-lattice held together by chemical forces very much as the 

 particles in a crystal, with this difference only that the molecules of 

 water and the ions of the salts in the pattern have the degree of 

 mobility characteristic of liquids. The electric fields created at the 

 two surfaces of the membrane determine the charge of the particles 

 of water impinging upon or lying adjacent to the surface of the 

 membrane. On the solution side the membrane is bounded by the 

 ions of the solute while on the side of pure solvent it is bounded by 

 water alone and this difference determines the direction of the 



Langmuir, I., /. Am. Chem. Soc, 1916, xxxviii, 2221. 



