If, on the other hand, we commence with a saturated saline solution, in general it is noticed on cooling the liquid a separation of salt ensues, which salt sinks to the bottom of the mass, and may be removed.  The salt so separating may be either anhydrous or a “hydrate” of greater concentration than the mother-liquor.  So long as this separation proceeds the temperature falls, but at length a point is reached at which the thermometer remains stationary until the whole is solidified, with the production of a cryohydrate.  This temperature of solidification is the same whether we start with a dilute or a saturated solution, and the composition of the cryohydrate is found to be constant.  The temperature of production of the cryohydrate is identical with the lowest temperature which can be produced on employing a mixture of ice and the salt as a freezing mixture or cryogen.

It will be readily seen that in the formation of a cryohydrate we have an example of eutexia, since the constituents are present in such proportion as to give to the resultant compound body a minimum temperature of liquefaction.

II.  EUTECTIC SALT ALLOYS.[4]

   [Footnote 4:  F. Guthrie, Phil.  Mag. [5], xvii., p. 469; F.B. 
   Guthrie, Journ.  Chem.  Soc,. 1885, p. 94.]

Although it has been long known that on mixing certain salts the resulting substance possessed a lower melting-point than either of the constituent salts alone, still but few determinations of the melting-points of mixtures of salts have been made, and even these are often of small value, on account of the very considerable range of temperature observed during solidification.  This is due largely to the fact that eutectic mixtures were not known, as equivalent proportions of various salts have been employed, while eutectic mixtures are seldom found to possess any simple arithmetical molecular relationship between their constituents.

Eutectic salt alloys closely resemble cryohydrates in behavior.  If for simplicity we confine our attention to a fused mixture of two salts in any proportion other than eutectic, it is found that, on cooling, the thermometer falls steadily, until at length that salt which is in excess of the proportion required for a eutectic mixture begins to separate out.  If this is removed, the thermometer falls until a fixed point is reached at which the temperature remains stationary until the whole of the mixture solidifies.  On remelting, the temperature of solidification is found to be quite fixed, and the mixture is evidently eutectic.

It is of interest to notice that from our knowledge of the cryohydrates it becomes possible to predict the existence, composition, and temperature of solidification of a eutectic alloy, if we are previously furnished with the melting-points of mixtures of the substances in question.  Or, in other cases, we may predict from the curve of melting-points that no eutectic alloy is possible.