386 JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 11, NO. 16 



For many reasons it is desirable to have a name for the quantity 

 which we have designated by the letter r. Thus arises the question 

 whether the term "curie," which by international agreement is an r of 

 radium emanation, shall be redefined so as to cover the entire field 

 embraced by our definition of the quantity r, or whether a new name 

 shall be added to the nomenclature of the science. In the latter 

 case the name rutherford seems most appropriate. 



In order to obtain an expression of opinion regarding the advisa- 

 bility of adopting a new name for the quantity we have denoted by the 

 letter r, the Bureau of Standards submitted the preceding portion of 

 this paper, in essentially its present form, to a number of chemists 

 and physicists. While agreeing that it is desirable to have a name for 

 the quantity r, the replies were divided regarding the advisability of 

 adding a new name to the nomenclature. The majority of the re- 

 plies favored the extension of the "curie" to cover the entire field, so 

 as to avoid the existence of two names to denote the same amount 

 of radium emanation. 



Such an extension involves a redefinition of the curie. The extended 

 term cannot be defined as the amount of an element that is in equiUb- 

 rium with a known amount of any other element, though for the ele- 

 ments of the uranium family from ionium to radium-C it will actually 

 denote the amount of these elements that can exist in equilibrium with 

 one gram of radium. Neither should it be thought of as that amount 

 of an element that under certain conditions will give a fixed, specified 

 ionization current. Its definition must be equivalent to the one we 

 have given for r; namely, as thus extended, a curie of any material 

 will be that amount of the material that will produce transformed 

 atoms at the same rate as transformed atoms are produced by one 

 gram of radium. 



MINERALOGY. — Lazulite of Graves Mountain, Georgia, with notes 



on other occurrences in the United States.'^ Thomas L. Watson, 



University of Virginia. 



Graves Mountain, Georgia, is located in Lincoln County about 



10 miles west from Washington, Wilkes County, the nearest raihoad 



point. The locality has long been known to mineralogists for the 



occurrence of rutile and lazulite in association with a group of more 



common minerals. These are, named without regard to order of 



abundance, lazulite, rutile, cyanite, pyrophylHte, hydrous antho- 



1 Received July 18, 1921. 



