280 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



conditions imposed upon it during its use, the correction for the cool 

 column projecting into the air may be omitted. This correction, by the 

 way, may account for the fact that Meyerhoffer and Saunders found 

 the transition temperature of sodic sulphate to be only 32.35° * instead 

 of 32.38.° 



We are much pleased that the idea should have been grasped with 

 such eagerness in the laboratory of Professor van't Hoff, for no better 

 proof could be found of its unquestionable utility. We feel too that 

 constants of this sort, like atomic weights, should be studied by more 

 than one set of investigators, and that they should be finally investigated 

 with the utmost care in the Bureau Internationale des Poids et des 

 Mesures, and the Reichsanstalt ; hence we are glad to accord to Messrs. 

 Meyerhotfer and Saunders the right which they demand to investigate 

 quintuple jjoiuts involving sodie sulphate or sodic carbonate. At the 

 same time, we feel that our undoubted priority (our preliminary paper 

 having been finished early in June) allows us to study any desired 

 portion of this field ; and for the present, feeling that the simpler sys- 

 tems are the better ones, we shall investigate primarily the salts named 

 above. 



Cambridge, November 14, 1898. 



* By a clerical error, Rimbach's table for this correction was stated in our last 

 paper to be on page 143 of Landolt and Burnstcin's Tables (1894). It is really on 

 page 95. 



