( 105 ) 



(liniinislies again); 3''^ thai in mixtures of water and alcoliol in w liicii 

 Na is dissolved, the sodium aleoholates are still [)resent. 



This last conclusion seems at first sight strange. But previous 

 observations had been made which justified the l>elicf that Na ()C,H 

 is present in an aqueous-alcoholic solution of' sodium. Henriques ^) for 

 instance siiowed that in the sai)onification of fats witli aqueous-alco- 

 holic soda the fats are not directly decomposed by the NaOH (the 

 alcohol would then only play llie [)art of a solvent) but that at first 

 the etiiyl esters of the fatty acids are formed. The well-known reaction 

 of Baumann — Schotten leads to a similar conclusion. 



Some tln-ee years after the abo^'e mentioned memoirs appeared, 

 LuLOFs ") studied the action of sodium alculiulate on chloro- (bromo- 

 or iodo-) dinitrobenzene (J, 2, 4), and observed the influence of 

 dilution with both absolute and dilute alcohol. It was then shown 

 that the reaction constants are really affected by tiie concentration 

 which was not the case in Steger's experiments; decrease of the 

 concentration increases the constant, addition of a salt with a common 

 ion, such as Na Br, decreases tlie constant both in absolute and 

 dilute ethylalcohoi. Here agaiji tiie water seemed to exert an in- 

 fluence, for in tlie case of ethyl alcoliol a tali in the reaction constants 

 took place w hilst with methyl alcohol first a rise and then a fall 

 was noticed. Why all this occurred could not be explained. 



From the aboxe facts it was evident (and it was repeatedly pointed 

 out in the papers in question) that it was necessary to study the 

 conductivity of sodiumethylate and -methylate in mixtures of water 

 ajid alcoliol. For this reason I decided to undertake this investigation. 



A short review of the results is given in the following tables and 

 the graphical i-epresentations connected therewith. A fuller description 

 of the experiments will be given elsewhere. 



As starting ])oint I always used solutions which were about 

 ^/i normal, determined their resistance and from the diluted solutions 

 prepared therefrom, I calculated the ft's for those dilutions and deter- 

 mined by intei-polation the f*'s for the dilutions of 1 molecule in 

 1,2, 4, 8, . , . . 512 Litres. The experiments were all done at a 

 temperature of 18°. 



In the following tables, the figures are represented graphically in 

 Fig. 1, II, III and IV, where the ft's are taken as ordinates and 

 the logarithms of the dilutions as abscissae. By using the logarithms 

 the scale of the drawing is reduced. The alcoholic percentages are 



1) Z. f. angew. Gh., 1898, 338, 697. 



2) Dissertatie, Amsterdam, 1901. Recueil 20, 292. (1901). 



