572 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 670 



gen, setting free carbon dioxide from car- 

 bonates and reddening litmus even after 

 surprising quantities of free base have been 

 added. In spite of this fact the sulphate, 

 chloride and nitrate have been shown to be 

 less hydrolyzed, as determined by the sugar 

 inversion method, than the corresponding 

 salts of aluminum and iron, although they 

 attack metals and carbonates vigorously 

 even after many times enough excess of 

 their own hydroxide has been dissolved to 

 throw back the hydrolysis. Other normal 

 salts like the nitrate can be prepared only 

 by crystallizing from concentrated acid, 

 and even anhydrous acid yields only basic 

 compounds in the case of the fatty acid 

 series. Normal salts of more readily vol- 

 atile acids, like the nitrite and carbonate, 

 have not been produced at all or only, as 

 in the case of the sulphite, from absolute 

 alcohol or, as with the halides, by the direct 

 combination of the elements themselves, 

 with special precautions to eliminate water. 

 Many normal salts, such as the borates, the 

 chlorates, the bromates, the iodates, the 

 chromates, the acetates, etc., have not been 

 obtained, apparently because a concentra- 

 tion of acid sufficient to overcome the so- 

 called hydrolytic solution tension of the 

 salts can not be attained. 



On the other hand, only one acid salt, 

 the mono acid phosphate, has any real 

 claim for recognition and, although the 

 peculiar nature of phosphoric acid would 

 seem to render the existence of this com- 

 pound as probable as any of an acid nature, 

 its e,xistence rests solely upon the testimony 

 of a single analysis of a non-crystalline 

 precipitate obtained by Scheffer nearly 

 fifty years ago. 



The action of water upon the compounds 

 of beryllium is highly modified, as is the 

 case with some of the compounds of alu- 

 minum and magnesium, by the entrance of 

 another metallic element into the molecule, 

 and some of the double salts of this element 



are well defined and readily obtained in 

 the presence of water, where the simple 

 normal salt could not be produced at all 

 or only with difficulty. This is notably 

 true of the double carbonates, chlorids, 

 iodides, nitrites and sulphites, although in 

 general these salts have been studied but 

 little, their discoverers being content with 

 their identification and .analysis. Among 

 the double salts time permits of the men- 

 tion only of the truly interesting double 

 alkali tartrates and malates studied by 

 Rosenheim and Itsig, and of the remarkable 

 fact that the introduction of beryllium 

 into their molecule enormously increases 

 the molecular rotation of the compound, 

 so that the diberyllium alkali tartrates 

 have from five to six times the molecular 

 rotation of the corresponding alkali bitar- 

 trates, and the diberyllium malates a mole- 

 cular rotation more than twenty times as 

 great as the alkali bimalates. This is par- 

 ticularly surprising since Walden has 

 shown that beryllium has no undue influ- 

 ence upon the molecular rotation of the 

 alpha brom camphor sulphonates. 



Some of the most interesting problems 

 of the chemistry of beryllium lie in the 

 equilibrium relations that exist between the 

 various acid radicals and quantities of the 

 oxide in excess of that required to produce 

 the normal salt, i. e., in the so-called basic 

 compounds. It is certainly true that many 

 of these acids can hold in solution phenom- 

 enally large amounts of beryllium oxide 

 or hydroxide, extending in the case of the 

 acetate to six equivalents, while the chlo- 

 ride can hold four, the sulphate three and 

 the oxalate nearly three equivalents. Even 

 after these abnormal amounts have been 

 dissolved the solutions still remain acid to 

 litmus, and if heated in contact with basic 

 beryllium carbonate the carbonate is at- 

 tacked, the carbon dioxide set free and an 

 equivalent amount of hydroxide thrown 

 out of solution. These highly concentrated 



