_Physical Condition._--The brittleness of the substances B and C, the facility with which they can be reduced to the finest powder, makes a striking point of difference between allotropic and normal silver. It is probable that normal silver, precipitated in fine powder and set aside moist to dry gradually, may cohere into brittle lumps, but these would be mere aggregations of discontinuous material. With allotropic silver the case is very different, the particles dry in optical contact with each other, the surfaces are brilliant, and the material evidently continuous. That this should be brittle indicates a totally different state of molecular constitution from that of normal silver.
_Specific Gravities._--The allotropic forms of silver show a lower specific gravity than that of normal silver.
In determining the specific gravities it was found essential to keep the sp. gr. bottle after placing the material in it for some hours under the bell of an air pump. Films of air attach themselves obstinately to the surfaces, and escape but slowly even in vacuo.
Taken with this precaution, the blue substance, B, gave specific gravity 9.58, and the yellow substance, C, specific gravity 8.51. The specific gravity of normal silver, after melting, was found by G. Rose to be 10.5. That of finely divided silver obtained by precipitation is stated to be 10.62.[1]
[Footnote 1: Watts' Dict., orig. ed., v. 277.]
I believe these determinations to be exact for the specimens employed. But the condition of aggregation may not improbably vary somewhat in different specimens. It seems, however, clear that these forms of silver have a lower specific gravity than the normal, and this is what would be expected.
[Footnote 1: Read at a meeting of the Liverpool Chemists' Association.]
In treating this subject it is necessary to limit it within comparatively narrow bounds, for bodies of the turpentine class are exceedingly numerous and not well understood. In this definite class turpentine means the exudation from various trees of the natural order Coniferæ, consisting of a hydrocarbon, C10 H16, and a resin. The constitution of the hydrocarbons in turpentine from different sources, though identical chemically, varies physically, the boiling point ranging from 156° C. to 163° C., the density from 0.855 to 0.880, and the action on polarized light from -40.3 to +21.5. They are very unstable bodies in their molecular constitution, heat, sulphuric acid, and other reagents modifying their properties. The resins are also very variable bodies formed probably by oxidation of the hydrocarbons, and as this oxidation is more or less complete, mixtures are formed very difficult to separate and study.