Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ...acid lack the property.1 This characteristic of carbonic acid is of the utmost significance, first by regulating one of the most fundamental of physicochemical conditions, and secondly by preserving throughout nature the characteristic chemical inactivity of water, which disappears whenever the reaction becomes either appreciably acid or appreciably alkaline. Almost the only case of important geological action due to acidity or alkalinity of water is the action of fresh water, containing carbonic acid itself, to weather the rocks. This process is, however, self-limited, for the dissolved material forms bicarbonates, and thus at once provides permanently inactive balanced solutions. It is impossible to understand the efficiency with which neutrality is preserved by carbonic acid, without the actual discussion of a particular case. Let us therefore consider a solution of 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide in 100 liters of water, to which sodium hydrate is being added. At the beginning of the experiment the hydrogen ion concentration will be approximately 0.0001 N, almost exactly one thousand times that at neutrality, and the hydroxyl ion concentration 0.0000000001 N, one one-thousandth that at neutrality. If, now, the sodium hydrate be added to the solution in successive portions, the change of reaction will be as indicated in the following table: --1 Henderson, "The Relation between the Strengths of Acids and their Capacity to Preserve Neutrality," American Journal of Physiology, XXI, 173, 1908. From the table it appears that the first 50 grams of alkali reduce the hydrogen ion concentration to but 50 times that of neutral solutions, and 200 grams of alkali have made it only about 10 times that of pure water, in spite of the fact that...