TRANSACTIONS OF’ SECTION B. 463 
which is best done by maintaining an atmosphere of steam in the cartouche. The 
time necessary for a complete operation is from thirty-six to forty hours. In 
addition to acetic acid and hydrogen, caprylic alcohol, sebacic acid, caproic acid 
and a new acid for which the name hippomic is proposed, are amone the produets 
of the reaction, and in the case of some fats hircic acid also. Hydrocarbons of the 
paraffin series are usually formed also. : 
Owing to the want of fluidity of sodium oleate, and its bad conducting power 
for heat, the process has to be somewhat modified for a caustic soda fasion ne 
the various substances tried, to give the mass fluidity, the use of paraffin has been 
attended with the greatest success, and the author saw a successful conversion 
effected in this way on a large scale for a laboratory. 
10. On the Action of Sunlight on P,O3.' By the Rev. A. Irvine, B.Sc. 
Following Wislicenus, the author finds that carefully prepared P,O,, when 
exposed in hermetically sealed tubes to the action of direct sunlight, is ‘entirely 
replaced by amorphous phosphorus and’P,O, (the latter proved by the amm 
molybdate test). ‘The author has also found that if one of these tubes in which 
the transformation has been effected is kept for a long time, a plentiful growth of 
crystalline P takes place upon the walls of the tube, apparently by slow sublima- 
tion of the red P. 
The author suggests, as an explanation of the reduction of some of the P.O. to 
P, the loosening of the bond which holds P to P in the molecule, as would. be 
shown in the graphic formula , 
PO 
il Yeh 
1A, 
In a layer of a considerable fraction of a millimetre in depth the molecules 
directly in contact with the glass wall of the tube would be first acted upon, and 
most strongly by sunlight ; the effect of this he conceives to be the loosening of the 
double bond which holds P to P, and an alteration in the relative strength of the 
affinities of P to P and of P to O. It isnot difficult to see how, under such altered 
conditions induced by the action of a purely physical agent (heat as well as light 
will produce the result), the molecules of P,O, which are not so strongly acted 
upon may, by their greed for oxygen (as shown by their spontaneous inflam- 
mability in moist air), act as a reducing agent upon the contiguous molecules which 
are more directly exposed to the action of light. This would perhaps explain the 
reaction which Wislicenus suggests, as follows: 
5P,0, =P, + 8P,0,. 
The explanation which has been suggested above seems also to help us to 
understand why the phosphide P,H, is spontaneously inflammable in air, whereas 
the phosphide P H, is not so. 5 
The author is inclined to attach some’ importance to the notion here suggested 
as illustrating the disturbance of chemical equilibrium and consequent partial dis- 
sociation, as a preliminary to chemical reactions. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. 
The Section did not meet. 
1 Printed in eatenso in the Chemical News, vol. xlviil, Oct. 12,/1883. 
