V. ON THE RELATION OF THE SURFACE TENSION AND 

 SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF CERTAIN AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS 

 TO THEIR STATE OF IONIZATION. BY E. H. ARCHIBALD, 

 B. Sc., Dalhousie College, Halifax, N. S. 



(Communicated by Prof. J. G. MacGregor, December 13th, 1897 J 



In a paper communicated to this Society last winter, Prof. 

 MacGregor* pointed out that according to the ionization concep- 

 tion of the constitution of a solution of an electrolyte, in the 

 case of a solution in which the dissociation was not complete, 

 the difference between the physical properties of the solution 

 and those of its solvent, must be compounded of the differences 

 produced by the undissociated molecules and by the free ions, 

 He drew from this that it should be possible to express the 

 numerical values of the various properties of such a solution 

 in terms of the state of ionization of the electrolytes it contained. 

 In sufficiently dilute simple solutions where the molecules dis- 

 sociated or undissociated might be regarded as being far enough 

 apart to render mutual action between them impossible, such 

 an expression would be of the simple form, 



S=S w +k (1 a) n + l an ............... ............... (1), 



where S is the numerical value of any property of a solution 

 (density, surface tension, &c.,) S w that of the same property of 

 water under the same physical conditions, n the number of 

 equivalent gramme-molecules per unit volume, a the ionization 

 coefficient of the electrolyte in the solution, and I and k 

 constants, called ionization constants, for any given property of 

 any given electrolyte. In the case of mixtures of simple solu- 

 tions, provided no change of volume occurs on mixing, the 

 expression will be of the form, 



]_ -r v a ~t~ 



&c ........... (2), 



Tran. N. S. Inst. Sci., Vol. IX., p. 219. 



(335) 



