256 REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



pressible atoms. Other relations of these significant figures with other 

 properties have been already partly worked out and will soon be published. 



(9) The electromotive forces between amalgams of varying concentrations: 

 This study, which has already yielded two comprehensive papers (publi- 

 cations of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Nos. 56 and 118), was 

 carried further with the help of Farrington Daniels. Last winter the elec- 

 trochemical behavior of very concentrated thallium amalgams was studied — 

 a problem peculiarly interesting because of the great solubility of thallium 

 in mercury. Results have been obtained which even exceed in consistency 

 the earlier work; they indicate very great deviations from the simple con- 

 centration law, and may form the basis for important conclusions concerning 

 the nature of solutions in general, as well as to further knowledge of the 

 mechanism of the chemical development of electrical energy. 



A long paper on the relations of the compressibilities of organic sub- 

 stances was published in the August number of the Journal of the American 

 Chemical Society; and in the same issue a discussion of recent work on 

 atomic weights, especially that subsidized by the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, is to be found. The new work on the absence of water in 

 lithium perchlorate will be presented at the International Congress of 

 Applied Chemistry, and some of the other investigations also may be pre- 

 sented there if they can be codified in time. 



The Wolcott Gibbs Chemical Laboratory at Harvard University, designed 

 entirely for research under the author's direction, is almost completed, and 

 will afford much better conditions for exact work than have heretofore been 

 available. Because of this improved opportunity, it is hoped that the gener- 

 ous grants of the Carnegie Institution of Washington may be more efficiently 

 used in the future than in the past. 



Sherman, H. C, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. Grant No. 767, 

 allotted Dec. 15, 191 1. Chemical investigations of amylases. $1,200 



The general plan of this investigation is to study thoroughly, with refer- 

 ence to both chemical nature and enzymic activity, at least one representative 

 from each of the three groups of amylases produced respectively by higher 

 animals, higher plants, and fungi. It is believed that such a study will be 

 of much scientific and economic importance because of the wide distribution 

 and important functions of the amylases, and that it will contribute mate- 

 rially to our understanding of the phenomena of enzyme action in general. 



At present all enzymes are known by their actions, and the chief criterion 

 of purity or concentration is the quantitative measurement of the enzymic 

 activity. Investigations carried on in this laboratory during 1907-10 re- 

 sulted in the development of a method for the more accurate measurement 

 of the activity of amylase than was previously possible (Sherman, Kendall 

 and Clark, Journal American Chemical Society, Sept. 1910). Using this 



