IX—investigations on magne-crystallic action III—Further studies on organic crystals

Abstract

In Part I* of this paper a convenient method of measuring the principal magnetic susceptibilities of single crystals was described, and several organic crystals, among others, were studied by this method. The results were discussed particularly in relation to the structure of the molecules and their orientations in the crystal lattice, and it was shown how a correlation of the principal magnetic susceptibilities of the crystal with those for the individual molecules (obtained from measurements on magnetic double-refraction in the liquid state, or from considerations of molecular structure) gives us useful information regarding the orientations of the molecules in the crystal lattice. Indeed, in favourable cases the molecular orientations may thus be determined much more easily, and some of the parameters defining the orientations also more accurately, than by X-ray methods of analysis. Conversely, where the molecular orientations in the crystal lattice are already known from X-ray studies, a knowledge of the principal magnetic susceptibilities of the crystal enables us to obtain the magnetic constants of the individual molecules, which are of interest. For example, it is thus found that as one proceeds from benzene to naphthalene and from naphthalene to anthracene, the numerical increase in susceptibility that occurs, is directed predominantly along the normal to the plane of the benzene rings