324 On Integral Weights in Chemistry. 



calcite with a specific gravity of 2*7536 corresponds to an 

 integral weight of 79912, we find the coefficient =800 ; since 

 99*89 : 79912 : : 1 : 800. Inverting this proportion we get 

 79912 : 99-89 : : 1 : -00125, which is the reciprocal of the 

 coefficient, since 800 x -00125 = 1-00000. Calcite with the 

 above density is 800 (CCa0 3 ), while water is 1628 (H 2 0), for 

 17-9633 : 29244 : : 1 : 1628, the reciprocal of its coefficient 

 being -00061425. 



11. The weight of water- vapour is fixed by experiment ; 

 but for calcium carbonate, which is not known in a gaseous 

 form, the theoretical integral weight (generally designated 

 by p) is deduced from the simplest admissible formula there- 

 for, and is a number which, as we have seen, corresponds to 

 the specific gravity of such a hypothetical carbonate, hydrogen 

 gas being unity. Representing by cl the specific gravity of 

 the condensed species, calcite, on the same hydrogen basis 

 (water = 29244), we have for calcite, sp. gr. 2*7356, by the 

 above given proportions, its coefficient of condensation, and 

 also the reciprocal thereof, in terms of hydrogen. 



In inquiries into the so-called molecular or atomic volume 

 of liquid and solid species from the time of Leroyer and Dumas, 

 while using the same symbols, and making p, as above, to 

 represent the specific gravity on the hydrogen basis, d has 

 been taken on the basis of water as unity (1 = 29244), so that 

 having employed the ordinary formula for molecular volume, 

 p-7-d — v, we multiply the value of v thus obtained by the 

 coefficient of condensation and get, not 1, but 29244. Other- 

 wise, dividing the value of v by 29244, we obtain the reci- 

 procal of the coefficient, as before, upon the hydrogen basis. 

 Chemical integration being effected, not by juxtaposition of 

 molecules, but by identification of volume, the so-called mole- 

 cular volume of a given liquid or solid species is thus the 

 reciprocal of its coefficient of condensation. 



For a further discussion of this question of integral weights 

 in some of its relations, the reader is referred to the author's 

 lately published volume, entitled i A New Basis for Chemistry ;' 

 and also to a still more recent essay " On Chemical Integra- 

 tion," read before the National Academy of Sciences at 

 Washington, in April, and published in the 'American Journal 

 of Science ' for August 1887, 



