334 abstracts: chemistry 



CLIMATOLOGY. — -Two climatic cross-sections of the United States. 



Robert De C. Ward. Monthly Weather Review 40, 1909-1917. 



1913. 

 Professor Ward had the good fortune to take the whole of the 13,000 

 mile "Transcontinental Excursion of the American Geographical Soci- 

 ety," August 22 to October 18, 1912, and had therefore an unusual 

 opportunity of studying at first hand the effects of the numerous climates 

 of this country on topography, plant growth, and human industry. All 

 these he describes in an article that follows the excursion up the Hudson, 

 along the Great Lakes, thru the Bad Lands, among the Geysers, down 

 the Grand Coulee, over the wheat fields, orchards and vineyards of 

 Washington, Oregon and California, across the Sierras, along the old 

 beaches of Lake Bonneville, among the mountains and down the canyons 

 of Colorado, thru the wonderful scenery of Arizona and New Mexico, 

 down the Mississippi, across the southern Appalachians, and along the 

 Piedmont Region by way of Washington, D. C, back to New York. 

 Every climatic section of the United States was visited on this trip, and 

 to each Professor Ward has given its due share of attention. 



W. J. Humphreys. 



CHEMISTRY. — The action of potassium amide on cupric yiitrate in liquid 

 ammonia solution. Edward C. Franklin. Hygienic Laboratory. 

 Journal American Chemical Society, 34: 1501. 1912. 



Instead of giving a precipitate of cuprous amide as might be expected, 

 cupric nitrate in solution in liquid ammonia reacts with potassium amide 

 to form ammonated cuprous nitride in accordance with the equation 

 3Cu(N03)2 + 6KNH2 = CugN.nNHs + 6KNO3 + (4-n)NH3 + N. 

 When heated in vacuo to laboratory temperature the precipitate loses 

 ammonia and is converted into cuprous imide, CugNH. At higher tem- 

 peratures cuprous imide is converted into cuprous nitride, CusN. 



The product of the general formula CusN.nNHs, dissolves in Hquid 

 ammonia solution of potassium amide to form a solution from which 

 well crystallized specimens of a colorless salt of the compound repre- 

 sented by the formula, CUNK2.3NH3, have been obtained. This com- 

 pound has been named potassium ammonocuprite for the reason that 

 it obviously occupies a position in the ammonia system of acids, bases 

 and salts entirely similar to that which the more familiar zincates, alumin- 

 ates, plumbites, etc., occupy in the water system. 



Potassium ammonocuprite with three molecules of ammonia of crys- 

 tallization, or triammonated potassium ammonocuprite, readily loses 



