" Thus, for example, all salts of iron, which
contain iron in the state of ions, give similar reactions; but salts
such as ferrocyanide of potassium, in which iron does not play the
part of an ion, never give the characteristic reactions of iron.
Professor Ostwald and his pupils have drawn from the hypothesis of
Arrhenius manifold consequences which have been the cause of
considerable progress in physical chemistry. Professor Ostwald has
shown, in particular, how this hypothesis permits the quantitative
calculation of the conditions of equilibrium of electrolytes and
solutions, and especially of the phenomena of neutralization. If a
dissolved salt is partly dissociated into ions, this solution must be
limited by an equilibrium between the non-dissociated molecule and the
two ions resulting from the dissociation; and, assimilating the
phenomenon to the case of gases, we may take for its study the laws of
Gibbs and of Guldberg and Waage. The results are generally very
satisfactory, and new researches daily furnish new checks.
Professor Nernst, who before gave, as has been said, a remarkable
interpretation of the diffusion of electrolytes, has, in the direction
pointed out by M.
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