100 Dr.8. B. Schryver. Some Investigations Dealing {[Aug. 12, 
latter cases it may be assumed that the molecule has reached such large 
dimensions that no kind of solution can take place. 
The correctness of the conceptions advanced above as to the nature of the 
formaldehyde-peptone reaction, and of the globulins, receives support in the 
results obtained in a general study of the action of salts in heterogeneous 
systems, in which an attempt was made to correlate their action in such 
systems with the physical properties of their solutions. 
The well-known deduction made by Willard Gibbs from thermodynamical 
considerations, that substances which reduce the surface tensions of solutions 
tend to accumulate at the surface, which was expressed by the formula 
(where R is the ordinary gas constant, T the absolute temperature, w the 
excess of molecules accumulating at the surface, c the concentration and 
o the surface tension) has been repeatedly applied in late years to the study 
of adsorption, notably by Donnan, and by Freundlich, and the above formula. 
has at the suggestion of the former been quite recently submitted to 
experimental verification by Lewis.* From these considerations it might be 
deduced that the amount of adsorption taking place from salt solutions 
would be a function of the surface tension of these solutions, the greater 
adsorption taking place from those solutions possessing a low surface tension. 
If the suggestions advanced above as to the nature of the formaldehyde- 
peptone reaction and of the globulins are correct, it should follow that the 
inhibitory action of salts on the precipitate formation in the former system, 
and their solvent (or disaggregating) capacity in the latter, are functions of 
their surface tension. 
This hypothesis has been submitted to experimental test, and the results 
obtained are given in detail below. It was found that in salts of the same 
series, the lower the surface tension, the greater was the solvent capacity for 
globulins, and the greater the inhibitory action on the formation of the 
insoluble methyleneimino-peptone derivative. This general result, however, 
was found, as already stated, only when salts of the same series were compared. 
The inorganic sodium salts, for example, were found as a general rule to have 
creater disaggregating capacities than the organic sodium salts having the 
same surface tension. Sodium salicylate, furthermore, had a far greater 
disaggregating capacity than sodium benzoate, a salt with very nearly the 
same surface tension. Sodium formate occupied a position intermediate 
* ‘Phil. Mag.,’ 1908 [6], vol. 15, p. 499, and 1909 [6], vol. 17, p. 466, and ‘Zeitsch. 
physikal. Chem.,’ 1910, vol. 73, p. 129. 
