SYNTHETICAL RESEARCHES ON ORGANIC ACIDS. 481 
' The results of this experiment show that, by keeping a current of carbonic 
acid constantly passing through the alcohol, the proportion of the fixed to 
the volatile acids is greatly increased, as well as the percentage of sodium 
converted into organic salts. But how a constant current of carbonic acid 
acts in this way, is a question to which at present I can give merely a con- 
jectural answer. 
27. In the first experiment 22:32 grms. organic salts were obtained? and 
it was found that 19°87 grms. were soluble in alcohol of 80 per cent., and 
therefore only 2°45 grms. insoluble therein. The mean of several determi- 
nations showed that a uniform mixture of the salts soluble in 80 per cent. 
alcohol required for solution 30 times its weight of alcohol of this per- 
centage. 
28. In the last experiment the total weight of organic salts was 
23-34 grms., and we found they contained 7-69 grms. Na. 
Hence the mean percentage of sodium in the salts was 32°95. This 
result is confirmed by the following analysis :— 
The dried sodium salts were mixed in a mortar, so as to be as nearly as 
possible of uniform composition, 
1-2714 grm. of the mixture gave 1-2977 grm. Na, SO,, or -4204 Na. 
The salts therefore contained 33-06 per cent. Na. 
Numerous other analyses agreed with these results. 
29. Now it is remarkable that the percentage of sodium in the organic 
salts is nearly the same as in formiate of sodium, which contains 33-82 per 
cent. sodium ; yet of the organic salts in the last experiment only about one- 
fourth were salts of volatile acids, and therefore not more than one-fourth 
could be formiate of sodium. 
Now oxalate of sodium, which contains 34°33 per cent. sodium, is the only 
salt the percentage of sodium in which is nearly the same as in formiate of 
sodium ; so that, at first sight, it seems difficult to understand how a mix- 
ture of sodium salts of fixed and volatile acids can contain 33-06 per cent. 
sodium. The following experiment shows how this is possible. 
30. A determination was made of the sodium in a uniform mixture of 
that portion of the organic salts which dissolved in 80 per cent. alcohol. 
-2168 grm. gave *2253 germ. Na, SO,, or ‘(0729 grm. Na. 
The mean percentage of sodium in the salts was therefore 33°66. 
Hence, by calculation, 1:3932 grm. of the same salts contains ‘4689 grm. 
sodium. 2°562 grms. crystallized oxalic acid, which are just sufficient to 
convert °4689 grm. sodium into acid oxalate, were dissolved in alcohol and 
added to the solution of the above 1:3932 grm. in alcohol of 80 per cent. 
The solution was filtered and the precipitated acid oxalate of sodium washed 
with alcohol of 80 per cent. The filtrate required for neutralization 13-3 cub. 
centims, standard caustic soda, or °3059 grm. Na, which is less than the sodium 
originally contained in the salts by 163 grm. On evaporating the neutralized 
solution to dryness, the weight of the residue was found to be 1°2185 grm., 
which is less than the original weight of the salts by ‘1747 grm., and this 
agrees very nearly with -163 grm., the loss in sodium. The loss in weight 
of the salts was therefore a loss of sodium. 
Hence we see that when the acids are liberated from the sodium-salts, as 
originally produced, they do not, when neutralized with caustic soda, take 
up the original quantity of sodium. The acids, therefore, were originally 
combined with more than a normal quantity of sodium; that is, not only 
was the basic hydrogen replaced by sodium, but also some of the non-basic 
or typical hydrogen. 
