CHAPTER III OXYGEN AND THE CHIEF ASPECTS OF ITS SALINE COMBINATIONS

To the fundamental properties of salts yet another must be added—namely, that they are more or less decomposed by the action of a galvanic current. The results of this decomposition are very different according to whether the salt be taken in a fused or dissolved state. But the decomposition may generally be so represented, that the metal appears at the electro-negative pole or cathode (like hydrogen in the decomposition of water, or its mixture with sulphuric acid), and the remaining parts of the salt appear at the electro-positive pole or anode (where the oxygen of water appears). If, for instance, an electric current acts on an aqueous solution of sodium sulphate, then the sodium appears at the negative pole, and oxygen and the anhydride of sulphuric acid at the positive pole. But in the solution itself the result is different, for sodium, as we know, decomposes water with evolution of hydrogen, forming caustic soda; consequently hydrogen will be evolved, and caustic soda appear at the negative pole: while at the positive pole the sulphuric anhydride immediately combines with water and forms sulphuric acid, and therefore oxygen will be evolved and sulphuric acid formed round this pole.⁵⁸ In other cases, when the metal separated is not able to decompose water, it will be deposited in a free state. Thus, for example, in the decomposition of copper sulphate, copper separates out at the cathode, and oxygen and sulphuric acid appear at the anode, and if a copper plate be attached to the positive pole, then the oxygen evolved will oxidise the copper, and the oxide of copper will dissolve and be deposited at the negative pole—that is, a transfer of copper from the positive to the negative pole ensues. The galvanoplastic art (electro-typing) is based on this principle.⁵⁹ Therefore the most radical and general properties of salts (including also such salts as table salt, which contain no oxygen) may be expressed by representing the salt as composed of a metal M and a haloid X—that is, by expressing the salt by MX. In common table salt the metal is sodium, and the haloid an elementary body, chlorine. In sodium sulphate, Na₂SO₄, sodium is again the metal, but the complex group, SO₄, is the haloid. In sulphate of copper, CuSO₄, the metal is copper and the haloid the same as in the preceding salt. Such a representation of salts expresses with great simplicity the capacity of every salt to enter into saline double decompositions with other salts; consisting in the mutual replacement of the metals in the salts. This exchange of their metals is the fundamental property of salts. In the case of two salts with different metals and haloids, which are in solution or fusion, or in