( 825 ) 
white phosphorus, for which we found 44,0°. Here we must remark 
however that only the differences of temperature are exact to one 
hundredth of a degree; the absolute values‘of the temperature may 
perhaps need a small correction, as we used as a standard of tem- 
perature a thermostat which had the temperature of 44° according 
to a controlled normal thermometer. 
When it had thus been proved that the phosphorus obtained by 
us has the property of melting resp. solidifying in a unary way, if 
was examined in how far the complexity of the phosphorus betrayed 
itself when we worked rapidly. 
As the result can be most clearly demonstrated by curves of cooling 
resp. of heating, we shall successively discuss figs. 2, 3, 4, and 
5, which will give us a highly interesting insight into the inner 
nature of the white phosphorus. *) 
Fig. 2 refers to the following experiment: the meltingpoint vessel 
with white phosphorus was kept in a thermostat of 40° for a day, 
and then suddenly transferred to a bath of 50°, after which the 
temperature was read every 10 seconds by means of the galvano- 
meter in a Wauerarstonge bridge. Now it follows from the curve in 
fig. 2, which indicates the temperature as a function of the time, that 
the melting set in at 48,92°, and was completed at 48,96°. 
The small range of melting temperatures of 0,04° shows that the 
substance behaved in an almost unary way, but not perfectly so, 
which is owing to this that the internal equilibrium had set in at 
4° under the unary melting-point. 
In another experiment another course was taken. The melting- 
point-vessel was kept for some time in a bath of + 46°, and then 
taken from the bath to make the cooling take place under exposure 
to the air. 
As the phosphorus is very easily supercooled, the crystallisation 
had to be started by grafting. For this purpose the capillary point 
e of the meltingpoint-vessel was for a moment brought in contact 
with solid ecarbonie acid and alcohol, when the temperature of the 
') In Fig. 2 the curve begins to rise more slowly at 42°, because melting occurs 
already in the outer layers of the phosphorus, which are warmer than the layer 
in contact with the thermometer. If this was not the case, we should have got 
the dotted line and melting would not have appeared before 43.92, 
At c the curve begins to rise more rapidly because the heterogeneous equili- 
brium no longer sets in rapidly enough — in consequence of the small quantity 
of solid substance present — that the heat applied to the solid substance is con- 
sumed entirely in melting it. If this had been the ease, the course would have 
been also here as the dotted line indicates and the melting would have beer 
completed at 48°.96, 
