All solutions, including aqueous solutions, are thus brought into one general relation. Solvent. ‹e› ‹c› ‹e› : ∛‹c› Methyl alcohol 32.5 0.125 65 Ethyl alcohol 21.7 0.020 80 Acetyl bromide 16.2 0.010 75 Benzaldehyde 16.9 0.016 78 Acetonitril 35.8 0.100 77 Water 80 0.00910 383 Furfurol 39.4 0.00125 365 Nitromethane 40 0.00125 371 Acetonitril 36 0.00100 358 Methyl alcohol 32.5 0.00050 365 «The Ionizing Power of Solvents Related to the Unsaturated Condition of their Simple Molecules and to their Power of Association.»—A careful scrutiny of the group of highly-ionizing solvents (p. 62) brings out another interesting relation, to which attention is called because it is a chemical one, and which should always be considered in connection with reactions in such solvents. It is well known that ammonia is an ‹unsaturated› body, combining readily with all acids, and with many salts, such as copper sulphate. The fact may be recalled, that this unsaturated condition is ascribed to the unsaturated nitrogen atom in the molecule of ammonia, the nitrogen showing a valence of only 3 in ammonia, whereas in the derivatives it forms when it saturates itself with the compounds mentioned, ‹e.g.› in H_{4}NCl, it has five saturated valences. Assuming that a valence consists in a unit charge, positive or negative, on the atom (pp. 42, 59), a view which has almost become a certainty, we should decide that the two free valences in ammonia must consist of a negative and a positive charge, as expressed in H_{3}N^{±}. (We may imagine such a double [p065] charge to be produced by the movement of one electron of the nitrogen atom to a position in that atom which would make one point of the atom negative and the other positive.) As a matter of fact, we find ammonia uniting with hydrogen chloride, by absorbing a positive and a negative fragment of it—producing H_{4}NCl from H_{3}N^{±} + H^{+} + Cl^{−}. It is also evident that, through these charges, ammonia could combine with itself to form larger complexes, ^{+}NH_{3}-NH_{3}^{−}, in which we would still have two opposite charges, presumably removed further from each other than in the simple molecule. The new molecule could, in turn, by virtue of its charges, combine with a further molecule to form a still larger or more ‹associated› molecule, ^{+}NH_{3}-NH_{3}-NH_{3}^{−}, and such ‹association› could evidently go still further. One can readily see that such molecules would be ‹electrically polarized›, and their charges might easily have the ‹power to cause[107] electrolytic dissociation or ionization›. The larger the associated molecule, the further apart might be the positive and negative charges upon it: the further apart the charges, the smaller would be their mutual attraction: and the smaller the mutual attraction, the stronger,