SALT AND WATER.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3559, 11 May 1901, Page 4

SALT AND WATER.

A scientific writer says of water: We are only beginning to learn how—it' acts. ' "That'it dissolves-many-'things' is well known; but j let us not be misled because this phenomena is~so" common and so familiar. Put a little,salt in water. What becomes of it? It disappears. There isnosolidsubstan ; cein<tbevessel. We may bandy phrases as we pleases, but wecannot teU what-has become of the salt.. We can get the salt out of the water by boiling the solution, and'letting the < water "pass off as steam, when the salt will be left behind. As we put the salt in-and take it out, we have been accustomed until recently to think of the salt. as being present in the solution "as > such. One oft the : most important advances- in chemistry made of late years is that *which leads to the-conception that, in-dilute solutions at least, there is little, if any, salt present; that in some way the water de-, composes it into particles higMy charged with electricity. These particles are'called ions. This idea has thrown a great deal of light upon important' problems of chemistry, but it has suggested many new ones. Some substances—-for example, sugar —do not act like salt when dissolved in water. Why this difference? Then, too, some liquids'which are'good'solvents do not act at all.like water. What' is it in "water that distinguishes it from most other liquids, such as alcohol and 'ether,' enabling it to tear many substances; asunder? These are-questions which are now very much to the front. ' Rapid progress is being made, and we may look for important discoveries in' this field in the near future.