THE STUDY OF TARTARIC ACID. 
39 
The subsalts known will be the following: 
T + 2HO + KOSb 2 3 = tartar emetic dried at 100° c. 
T + 2HO + KOF 2 3 = tartrate of iron and potassa. 
T-f 2HO + KOB0 3 = soluble cream of tartar. 
When these basic salts, after being dried at 100° c, are 
heated still higher, the basic water is displaced ; but except, 
as to the excess of base, the composition of the tartrates re- 
mains unaltered. We can then explain why the basic tar- 
trates are the only ones which lose two atoms of water by 
heat; the other not containing the base to be liberated. This 
theory, any more than the other, cannot be considered as a 
true expression of the phenomena; it has at least the advan- 
tage of satisfying, in a simple manner, the chemical data of 
experiments which belong to tartaric acid and the tartrates. 
In the course of our researches we desired to obtain, by 
the direct action of cream of tartar on oxide of antimony, the 
basic salt, which chemists have supposed to exist in the mo- 
ther waters of tartar emetic. The following are the results: 
We kept boiling in a mattrass, for forty hours, one equiva- 
lent of pure cream of tartar, (24.64 grammes,) and two equi- 
valents of oxide of antimony (38.24 grammes) in 400 grammes 
of water. One-half only of the oxide of antimony was dis- 
solved, and the liquid afforded, to the very last, common tar- 
tar emetic. 
We have not as yet been more successful in producing a 
tartrate of antimony and potassa not basic. The liquid has 
always yielded separate crystals of cream of tartar and of tar- 
tar emetic. Journ. de Pharm. 
