We will now consider the reactions of oxides in the state of hydrates, not losing sight of the fact that water is itself an oxide with definite properties, and has, therefore, no little influence on the course of those changes in which it takes part.
If we take a definite quantity of an acid, and add an infusion of litmus to it, it turns red; the addition of an alkaline solution does not immediately alter the red colour of the litmus, but on adding more and more of the alkaline solution a point is reached when the red colour changes to violet, and then the further addition of a fresh quantity of the alkaline solution changes the colour to blue. This change of the colour of the litmus is a consequence of the formation of a new compound.
This reaction is termed the saturation or neutralisation of the acid by the base, or vice versâ. The solution in which the acid properties of the acid are saturated by the alkaline properties of the base is termed a neutral solution. Such a solution, although derived from the mixture of a base with an acid, does not exhibit either the acid or basic reaction on litmus, yet it preserves many other signs of the acid and alkali. It is observed that in such a definite admixture of an acid with an alkali, besides the changes in the colour of litmus there is a heating effect—i.e. an evolution of heat—which is alone sufficient to prove that there was chemical action.
And, indeed, if the resultant violet solution be evaporated, there separates out, not the acid or the alkali originally taken, but a substance which has neither acid nor alkaline properties, but is usually solid and crystalline, having a saline appearance; this is a salt in the chemical sense of the word. Hence a salt is derived from the reaction of an acid on an alkali, in a certain definite proportion. The water here taken for solution plays no other part than merely facilitating the progress of the reaction. This is seen from the fact that the anhydrides of the acids are able to combine with basic oxides, and give the same salts as do the acids with the alkalis or hydrates. Hence, a salt is a compound of definite quantities of an acid with an alkali. In the latter reaction, water is separated out if the substance formed be the same as is produced by the combination of anhydrous oxides together.54
Examples of the formation of salts from acids and bases are easily observed, and are very often applied in practice. If we take, for instance, insoluble magnesium oxide (magnesia) it is easily dissolved in sulphuric acid, and on evaporation gives a saline substance, bitter, like all the salts of magnesium, and familiar to all under the name of Epsom salts, used as a purgative. If a solution of caustic soda—which is obtained, as we saw, by the action of water on sodium oxide—be poured into a flask in which charcoal has been burnt; or if carbonic anhydride, which is produced under so many circumstances, be passed through a solution of caustic soda, then sodium carbonate or soda, Na2CO3, is obtained, of which we have spoken several times, and which is prepared on a large scale and often used in manufactures. This reaction is expressed by the equation, 2NaHO + CO2 = Na2CO3 + H2O. Thus, the various bases and acids form an innumerable number of different salts.55
Salts constitute an example of definite chemical compounds, and both in the history and practice of science are most often cited as confirming the conception of definite chemical compounds. Indeed, all the indications of a definite chemical combination are clearly seen in the formation and properties of salts. Thus, they are produced with a definite proportion of oxides, heat is evolved in their formation,56 and the chemical character of the oxides and many of the physical properties become hidden in their salts. For example, when gaseous carbonic anhydride combines with a base to form a solid salt, the elasticity of the gas quite disappears in its passage into the salt.57