Note 17 — Chapter I · ON WATER AND ITS COMPOUNDS

The researches of Graham, Fick, Nernst, and others showed that the quantity of a dissolved substance which is transmitted (rises) from one stratum of liquid to another in a vertical cylindrical vessel is not only proportional to the time and to the sectional area of the cylinder, but also to the amount and nature of the substance dissolved in a stratum of liquid, so that each substance has its corresponding co-efficient of diffusion. The cause of the diffusion of solutions must be considered as essentially the same as the cause of the diffusion of gases—that is, as dependent on motions which are proper to their molecules; but here most probably those purely chemical, although feebly-developed, forces, which incline the substances dissolved to the formation of definite compounds, also play their part.