Solutions of salts on refrigeration below 0° deposit ice or crystals (which then frequently contain water of crystallisation) of the salt dissolved, and on reaching a certain degree of concentration they solidify in their entire mass. These solidified masses are termed cryohydrates. My researches on solutions of common salt (1868) showed that its solution solidifies when it reaches a composition NaCl + 10H2O (180 parts of water per 58·5 parts of salt), which takes place at about -23°. The solidified solution melts at the same temperature, and both the portion melted and the remainder preserve the above composition. Guthrie (1874–1876) obtained the cryohydrates of many salts, and he showed that certain of them are formed like the above at comparatively low temperatures, whilst others (for instance, corrosive sublimate, alums, potassium chlorate, and various colloids) are formed on a slight cooling, to -2° or even before.59 In the case of common salt, the cryohydrate with 10 molecules of water, and in the case of sodium nitrate, the cryohydrate60 with 7 molecules of water (i.e. 126 parts of water per 85 of salt) should be accepted as established substances, capable of passing from a solid to a liquid state and conversely; and therefore it may be thought that in cryohydrates we have solutions which are not only undecomposable by cold, but also have a definite composition which would present a fresh case of definite equilibrium between the solvent and the substance dissolved.
The formation of definite but unstable compounds in the process of solution becomes evident from the phenomena of a marked decrease of vapour tension, or from the rise of the temperature of ebullition which occurs in the solution of certain volatile liquids and gases in water. As an example, we will take hydriodic acid, HI, a gas which liquefies, giving a liquid which boils at -20°. A solution of it containing 57 p.c. of hydriodic acid is distinguished by the fact that if it be heated the hydriodic acid volatilises together with the water in the same proportions as they occur in the solution, therefore such a solution may be distilled unchanged. The solution boils at a higher temperature than water, at 127°. A portion of the physical properties of the gas and water have in this case already disappeared—a new substance is formed, which has its definite boiling point. To put it more correctly, this is not the temperature of ebullition, but the temperature at which the compound formed decomposes, forming the vapours of the products of dissociation, which, on cooling, re-combine. Should a less amount of hydriodic acid be dissolved in water than the above, then, on heating such a solution, water only at first distils over, until the solution attains the above-mentioned composition; it will then distil over unaltered. If more hydriodic acid be passed into such a solution a fresh quantity of the gas will dissolve, but it passes off with great ease, like air from water. It must not, however, be thought that those forces which determine the formation of ordinary gaseous solutions play no part whatever in the formation of a solution having a definite boiling point; that they do react is shown from the fact that such constant gaseous solutions vary in their composition under different pressures.61 It is not, therefore, at every, but only at the ordinary, atmospheric pressure that a constant boiling solution of hydriodic acid will contain 57 p.c. of the gas. At another pressure the proportion of water and hydriodic acid will be different. It varies, however, judging from observations made by Roscoe, very little for considerable variations of pressure. This variation in composition directly indicates that pressure exerts an influence on the formation of unstable chemical compounds which are easily dissociated (with formation of a gas), just as it influences the solution of gases, only the latter is influenced to a more considerable degree than the former.62 Hydrochloric, nitric, and other acids form solutions having definite boiling points, like that of hydriodic acid. They show further the common property, if containing but a small proportion of water, that they fume in air.