Societies and Academies

Abstract

MANCHESTER. Literary and Philosophical Society, October 7.—Mr. Charles Bailey, president, in the chair.—A paper was read by Mr. R. L. Taylor on the reaction of iodine with mercuric oxide in presence of water. In a former paper he had shown that, when aqueous iodine is shaken up with precipitated mercuric oxide and rapidly filtered, the filtrate contained 80 to 90 per cent, of the possible amount of hypoiodous acid. Messrs. Orton and Blackman have stated, in a paper read before the Chemical Society, that the solutions obtained from iodine and mercuric oxide contain only a small quantity of hypoiodite, the iodine existing mainly as iodic acid. Mr. Taylor concludes from the description of these experiments that the authors overlooked the extremely unstable nature of hypoiodous acid. They used ordinary powdered iodine, which is not sufficiently finely divided, and they took a great-deal too long over their experiments. Using precipitated iodine and performing the experiments as rapidly as possible, Mr. Taylor finds that with from ten to twenty-five times as much iodine in proportion to the water as he formerly used, the solution con tains from 44 to 52 per cent, of the possible amount of hypoiodous acid and very little iodic acid.