CHEMISTRY 121 



on purely scientific lines ultimately yields results which are of the highest utility to the 

 community, and may have far-reaching effects on its industry and commerce. A strik- 

 ing instance of this lies to hand, for after much laborious investigation, synthetic rubber 

 is now an accomplished fact, and no one can yet foretell what this discovery will mean 

 to the community. Chemistry is contributing largely also to progress in other sciences, 

 notably biology. At the present day, organic chemists are busy investigating and 

 building up the countless substances which are normally the products of plant and 

 animal activity, while physical chemistry, with its accumulated data bearing on the 

 phenomena of solution, offers valuable assistance to the physiologist in the interpreta- 

 tion of vital processes. The present survey of the recent progress of chemistry deals 

 only with the purely scientific aspect of the subject. If, further, it is borne in mind 

 that the chemical investigations reported in recognised journals all over the world number 

 about 5,000 per annum, it is plain that only some of the more outstanding points can 

 be discussed here. 



Inorganic Chemistry. Since 1910 two new elements have been incorporated in the 

 table of International Atomic Weights. These are niton (radium emanation), atomic 

 weight 222.4 (Gray and Ramsay, Proc. Roy. Soc., A., 1910, ^84, 536), and holmium, 

 atomic weight 163.5 (Holmberg, Zeitsch. anorg. Chem., 1911, 71, 226). In the case 

 of some other elements recent research has led to a revision of the values previously 

 adopted. The most notable instance of this is mercury, for which the atomic weight 

 200. 6 is now recommended '(see /. Chem. Soc., 1911, 99, 1868: also Easley, /. Amer. 

 Chem. Soc., 1910, 32, 1117; 1912, 34, 137). Other recent and important investigations 

 on atomic weights are those dealing with silver (Richards and Willard, /. Amer. Chem. 

 Soc., 1910, 32, 4; Baxter, ibid., 1591), and chlorine (Gray and Burt, J. Chem. Soc., 1909, 

 95, 1633', Chem. News, 1911, 103, 161; Stabler and Meyer, Zeitsch. anorg. Chem., .1911, 

 77, 378). The claim to have fractionated tellurium (see E. B. xxvi, 577: also Flint, 

 Amer. J own. Sci., [IV], 1910, 30, 209) has not stood the test of further experimental 

 examination (Marckwald and Foizik, Ber., 1910, 43, 1710; Harcourt and Baker, /, 

 Chem. Soc., 1911, 99, 1311). 



Of the 82 elements as many as 27 have atomic weights which are multiples of unity 

 to within o.i, and this fact suggests that there may be something in Prout's hypothesis 

 (see E. B. ix, 258). The bearing of the disintegration theory of radium on this point 

 has lately been discussed by Sir W. Ramsay (British Association Reports, 1.911, 10). 

 Of interest also in this connection is the Faraday lecture on the fundamental properties 

 of the elements (Richards, /. Chem. Soc., 1911, 99, 1201). 



Much interest has been aroused by the discovery of a chemically active modification 

 of nitrogen (Strutt, Proc. Roy. Soc., A., 1911, 85, 219; 86, 56; 1912, 86, 262). When a 

 current of this gas at low pressure is subjected to the action of an electric discharge, it 

 continues to glow in an adjoining tube, after passing out of the region of the discharge. 

 The chemical change which gives rise to the glow appears to be accelerated by cooling 

 and retarded by heating. Compression of the glowing gas increases the intensity of 

 the glow. Ordinary phosphorus, exposed to the action of the luminous gas, is converted 

 into the red variety. Sodium and mercury, gently heated in the glowing gas, combine 

 with it; in both cases line spectra of the metals are developed. Hydrogen merely dilutes 

 the glow, whilst oxygen destroys it, apparently without oxidation occurring. 



Attempts are still being made to elucidate the mechanism of rusting. Pure iron does 

 not rust in contact with pure oxygen and pure water, not even when carbon dioxide is 

 present (Lambert and Thompson, /. Chem. Soc., 1910, 97, 2426). Commercial iron, 

 however, behaves differently. The experiments of Dunstan and Hill (J. Chem. Soc., 

 1910, 99, 1835), who find that those dissolved substances which prevent iron rusting are 

 those which induce the so-called " passive " state in the metal, give support, on the 

 whole, to the electrolytic theory of rusting (see Tilden, /. Chem. Soc., 1908, 93, 1356. 

 Compare Armstrong, Science Progress, 1911, April and October; Friend, /, Chem. Soc., 

 1912, jo/, 50). 



Much work dealing with the fundamental subject of combustion has been published 



