42 A FEW CHEMICAL CHANGES 



order to maintain the value of its solubility product, which 

 must be exceedingly small. Thus the silver chloride accumu- 

 lates very slowly and finally becomes visible. This explanation 

 would seem to account for the appearance of silver chloride in a 

 mixture of silver nitrate and chloroform a long time after 

 mixing. 



The following experiment was carried out to find whether 

 chloroform could be ionized by radium to a sufficient extent, as 

 to produce a visible amount of silver chloride when mixed with a 

 solution of silver nitrate. About 50 cc. of chloroform which were 

 found to produce no precipitate on mixing with a solution of sil- 

 ver nitrate, were placed in a wide-mouthed reagent bottle, with 

 a capacity of about 125 cc. The brass tube containing the 

 radium was passed through a tightly fitting rubber cork and fixed 

 firmly into the mouth of the bottle. This solution was placed 

 in the dark, and at the end of twenty-four hours it was shaken 

 up with a few cc. of silver nitrate solution. After removing the 

 water from the chloroform by allowing it to remain for a few 

 hours over anhydrous copper sulphate, the liquid remaining 

 possessed a milkiness which must have been due to the presence 

 of silver chloride, thus proving that chlorine ions had been 

 separated from the chloroform by the action of the radium. 



Action of Radium on Amygdalin. 



The laws of the action of light on glucosides, enzymes, 

 toxins and antitoxins have been thoroughly investigated by 

 Dreyer and Haussen,, 1 who have shown that the effect of light- 

 on the glucosides is to cause them to break down with the 

 formation of glucose. For the purpose of investigating the 

 action of radium upon the glucosides, the most common one, 

 amygdalin C H NO was chosen. The amount of decom- 

 position could readily be measured by estimating the amount 

 of glucose formed. 



I C. R , 1907, 115. p. 564. 



