The following letter appears in a recent number of the _Chemical
News_.
_Sir_: In a recently published lecture, Mr. Meldola seems to call in
question the existence of allotropic silver. This opinion does not
appear, however, to be based on any adequate study of the subject, but
to be somewhat conjectural in its nature. No experimental support of
any sort is given, and the only argument offered (if such it can be
called) is that this altered form of silver is analogous to that of
metals whose properties have been greatly changed by being _alloyed_
with small quantities of other metals. Does, then, Mr. Meldola suppose
that a silver alloy can be formed by precipitating silver in the
presence of another metal from an aqueous solution, or that one can
argue from alloys, which are solutions, to molecular compounds or
lakes? Moreover, he has overlooked the fact that allotropic silver can
be obtained in the absence of any metal with which silver is capable
of combining, as in the case of its formation by the action of soda
and dextrine.
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