IV. ON FINDING THE lONIZATION OF COMPLEX SOLUTIONS OF 



GIVEN CONCENTRATION, AND THE CONVERSE PROBLEM : By 

 PROF. J. G. MACGREGOR, Dalhousie College, Halifax, N. S. 



(Received September 30th, 1S99.) 



In a paper communicated to this Institute in 1895, 1 I 

 described a method of determining the ionization coefficients of 

 two electrolytes, with one ion in common, in the same dilute 

 aqueous solution. The method described was developed in the 

 study of complex solutions which had been formed by the 

 mixture of simple solutions of known concentration, and involves 

 a knowledge of their concentrations. Even if the complex solu- 

 tions have not been formed in this way, but have been prepared, 

 say, by the addition of known quantities of the electrolytes to a 

 known quantity of water, they may always be imagined to have 

 been formed by mixture of simple solutions ; and in the usual 

 case in which the solutions are so dilute that no change of 

 volume would have occurred in forming them by mixture, the 

 concentrations of the simple solutions by the mixing of which 

 the given complex solution might be formed, can readily be 

 determined. But a simple modification of the method renders 

 it applicable in such cases directly ; and when so modified, its 

 application is found both to require fewer data with respect to 

 the conductivity of simple solutions of the electrolytes involved, 

 and to be subject to fewer sources of error, than in its old form. 

 As modified also, it is found to be readily applicable conversely 

 to the determination of the concentration which such complex 

 solutions must have in order that they may have any given 

 possible state of ionization. 



In the present paper, I wish to describe this modified form 

 of the method, and to point out how it may be used in deter- 



iTrans. N. S. Inst. Sci., 9, 101, 1895-96: See also Phil. Mag. (5), 41, 276, 1896, and Trans. 

 Roy. Soc. Can., (2), 2, sec. 3, 65, 1896-7. 



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