265 



the racemic salt at all temperatures between 15° and 100° C. 

 characterizes the racemoid undoubtedly as the more stable solid 

 phase within this range of temperature, with respect to the mixture 

 of these antipodes. Tlie experiment described by Werner can therefore 

 never lead to a spontaneous fission, and surely it must be quite 

 impossible, that under these conditions an optically active crystal 

 should increase, when brought at room-temperature into the saturated 

 solution of the racemic salt. This may readily be deduced from 

 Bakhuis Roozeboom's well-known graphical representations ^) of the 

 solubility -relations here prevailing. Indeed, it could be proved on the 

 contrary by often repeated experiments, that a crystal of one of the 

 optically-active forms, if brought into a feebly supersaturated or 

 saturated solution of the racemic salt, immediately disintegrates and 

 suhsequently disappears completely, and that after some lapse of time, 

 tvicUnic crystals of the racemic compound are deposited from the 

 solution. These last crystals are often rudimentarily developed, so 

 that occasionally they make the impression of pedial, unsymmetrical 

 crystals, which of course must therefore appear non-superposable 

 with their mirror-images. If dissolved in water, the solutions of these 

 crystals were in every case optically ineictive, There can be no doubt 

 whatever therefore about the fact, that the crj^stals obtained and 

 reproduced by Werner must have been distorted triclinic crystals 

 of the racemic salt ; it remains, however, doubtful whether the 

 solutions obtained by him in dissolving these crystals, can really 

 have been "optically-active", unless some optically-active crystals 

 for inoculation-purposes were previously introduced into the solutions. 



We were able, moreover, to demonstrate the remarkable fact that 

 the crystals of the pure optically active components exhibit exactly 

 the same symmetry as that previously deduced for the complex ions 

 of this type themselves. Indeed, they are trigonal-trapezohedral, and 

 they show forms which externally are quite comparable ^vith the 

 typical forms of some dextro- or laevogyratory ^i/ar^^-crystals. 



The racemic salt was prepared from freshly precipitated and 

 washed rhodium-hydroxide obtained from sodium-rhodium-chloride by 

 means of a dilute sodium hydro.ride-so\u\\on at 40° C. ; the pure 

 rhodium-hydro.vide was then dissolved in a hot soluhon of potassium- 

 bi-oxalate. The tission into its components, which is a rather tedious 

 process, was executed by means of the stryclmine-s^Sih, from which 

 aftei-wards the strychnine was readily eliminated in the form of 

 its iodide. 



1) H. W. Bakhuis Roozeboom, Zeits. f. phys. Chemie, 28. 494. (1899). 



18 

 Proceedings Royal Acad. Amsterdam. Vol XX, 



