CHEMISTRY: LEWIS AND MINE 
635 
gams. It is to be hoped that further knowledge of the transference 
numbers so obtained, together with accurate information concerning the 
electrical conductivity of amalgams, may furnish important evidence 
as to the nature of electrical conduction in dilute amalgams and in pure 
mercury. 
Important investigations of the conductivity of amalgams and liquid 
alloys have been conducted by Bornemann and his collaborators,^ 
but they have confined their studies to high concentrations. If from 
transference number and conductivity we propose to obtain information 
concerning the nature of the carriers in the amalgams and in pure mer- 
cury, analogous to that which has been derived from a similar study of 
aqueous solutions, we may expect the most significant results from an 
investigation of dilute amalgams, ranging from zero to one atom per 
cent. We shall describe in this paper the results of an investigation of 
the conductivity of dilute amalgams of sodium, potassium, and lithium. 
Since the conductivity of these amalgams differs but httle from that 
of pure mercury, the difference itself can be determined with accuracy 
only by methods of the highest precision. By means of a simple po- 
tentiometer method it was found possible to compare the conductivity 
of an amalgam with that of pure mercury with an accuracy of two or 
three parts in one hundred thousand. (Full details of the potentiom- 
eter method, together with the method of preparing, transferring and 
analyzing the amalgams, are contained in a paper which will shortly be 
offered for publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.) 
The experimental results are given in the three following tables, in 
each of which the first column gives the atom per cent of alkali metal, 
and the second the specific resistance divided by that of pure mercury 
at the same temperature. The measurements were all made at about 
20°C. 
TABLE I 
Lithium Amalgam 
RESIST- 
ATOM ANCE RE- 
FER CENT FERRED TO 
MERCURY 
0.03269 0.999468 
0.09988 0.998280 
0.3080 0.994006 
0.4844 0.990105 
0.7103 0.985603 
0.8221 0.983097 
TABLE II 
Sodium Amalgam 
ATOM 
PER CENT 
RESIST- 
ANCE RE- 
FERRED TO 
MERCURY 
0.09325 
1.00071 
0.2905 
1.00204 
0.3851 
1.00274 
0.8646 
1.00535 
1.197 
1.00657 
1.670 
1.00800 
2.113 
1.00867 
2.409 
1.00893 
2.644 
1.00824 
3.661 
1.00657 
4.916 
1.00621 
TABLE III 
Potassium Amalgam 
RESIST- 
ATOM 
ANCE RE- 
PER CENT 
FERRED TO 
MERCURY 
0.05831 
1.00220 
0.1791 
1.00574 
0.4068 
1.01767 
0.5590 
1.02623 
0.6502 
1.03032 
0.8777 
1.04147 
1.186 
1.05341 
