SECTION III., 1901 [35] Trans. R.S. C. 
VI. Note on the Identification of Basic Salts. 
By W. LasH MILLER and FRANK B. KENRICK. 
(Read May 22, 1901.) 
Basic Salts are prepared by the action of water or of bases—potash, 
ammonia, ete.—on the “normal” salts of most of the metals ; in 
composition they stand intermediate between the normal salts and the 
oxides (bases), hence the name “ Basic Salt.” Some are well defined 
crystalline compounds, but the greater number are known only as amor- 
phous, muddy precipitates, whose composition varies with the concen- 
tration and temperature of the solutions and even with the order of 
mixing the ingredients from which they are prepared. 
When the basic salt, besides being amorphous, is insoluble, non- 
volatile, and infusible—and this is the rule rather than the exception 
—it is quite impossible to purify it by any of the usual means ; and 
as the removal of.the mother-liquors by washing with water can be 
resorted to only when special experiments have shown that the compo- 
sition of the precipitate is not affected by such treatment, even the 
ultimate analysis of the crude precipitate is not unattended with 
difficulties. 
In the article “Antimoine” in the Encyclopédie Chimique, M. 
Guntz quotes analyses of an oxychloride of antimony by four different 
chemists; the percentage of chlorine varies from 11°25% to 7°8%. As 
experiments carried out by Mr. Good (referred to below) show that the 
substances analysed with such descrepant results were in all probability 
one and the same chemical compound, M. Guntz’s conjecture that the 
material for analysis was washed too much by some of the analysts, and 
too little by others, may be accepted as correct. 
In such cases the allocation of formule is apt to be somewhat 
arbitrary. Some authors distribute them with a lavish hand, and 
appear to delight in endowing “amorphous finely-divided precipitates” 
with the dignity of chemical individuality; while the more conservative 
are content to describe the same precipitates as “impure modifi- 
cations” of “compounds” which have already found their way into the 
text-books. Gladstone took a cautious course; after analysing the 
precipitate sometimes produced when cupric chloride is dissolved in 
water, he says:—“ Though the salt is evidently somewhat irregular 
in composition, it approaches nearer [within 2-3%] to the oxychloride 
