March 30, 191 1] 



NATURE 



155 



Under the title " Chemische Weltliteratur," Dr. 

 Wilhelin Ostwald communicates an article to the current 

 number of the Zeitschrift fiir physikalische Chemie which 

 raises a question of very general interest. He points out 

 that the convention under which all scientific publications 

 are published in one of the three " great " languages 

 (English, French, or German) shows signs of breaking 

 down. Partly through an increased sense of nationality, 

 partly through the difficulty of writing freely in a foreign 

 tongue, numerous valuable publications are now published 

 in Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, and other languages. 

 This tendency renders it difficult, if not impossible, for a 

 worker in any given branch of science to learn what has 

 already been done in his own subject. Dr. Ostwald then 

 discusses the possibility of an agreement on an inter- 

 national speech for scientific publications. Owing to the 

 large number of new conceptions and terms, the use of 

 Latin for this purpose is no longer possible, and Ido, an 

 improved and developed Esperanto, is suggested as a solu- 

 tion. A general outline of this artificial language is given, 

 and a nomenclature especially adapted to chemistry is 

 sketched out. The subject is one which might well receive 

 attention at international scientific congresses, and if it 

 were possible to arrive at a general agreement, even in 

 one or two isolated sciences only, a real step in the 

 diffusion of science would be made. 



We have received from the publishers, Gebriider Born- 

 traeger, of Berlin, the first number of a new magazine 

 entitled Internationale Zeitschrift fiir Metallographie. 

 Although published in Berlin and edited by Dr. Guertler 

 in that city, the new journal aims at an international 

 character, and the list of collaborators includes the names 

 of the leading workers in metallography in this country, as 

 well as in Germany, America, Sweden, and Italy. The 

 journal is intended for the publication of papers in German, 

 English, or French dealing with the whole range of 

 metals and alloys, each paper being accompanied by a 

 brief abstract in all three languages. If the new journal 

 can secure the necessary contributions in such a way as 

 to avoid the wide scattering of metallographie papers 

 which now occurs, it will prove extremely useful. It is, 

 however, recognised that British authors who are accus- 

 tomed to present their work to scientific or technical 

 societies will not be able to abandon these in favour of 

 the magazine ; such papers are therefore either to be re- 

 printed in full or to be fully abstracted. The present 

 number of the journal contains introductory matter by 

 the editor, and two papers of some interest, one by Profs. 

 Heyn and Bauer (Berlin) on internal stresses in cold- 

 wrought metal, and the other by Prof. Mathewson 

 (U.S.A.) on sodium-silver alloys. The experiment of 

 establishing an international journal of this kind is an 

 interesting one ; if successful, it may lead to similar 

 developments in other branches of science. 



A RECENT issue of the Memoirs of the College of Science 

 and Engineering, Kyoto Imperial University, contains two 

 interesting papers on isomerism of different types. In the 

 first paper, by Prof. Kuhara and Mr. Komatsu, on 

 isomeric phenylphthalimides and some allied compounds, 

 the authors describe a ni mber of pairs of isomeric deri- 

 vatives of phthalimide. The parent substance is only 

 known in one form, but phenylphthalimide has been 

 obtained in colourless needles melting at 83°-84°, and in 

 yellow rhombic crystals melting at i25°-i26°. To these 

 the authors now assign the formulae 



/CO. / C ^NC.Ha 



CgH/ >NC„II, and CflH / >0 



\co- \co/ 



(Colourless) (Coloured) 



NO. 2 161, VOL. 86] 



Similar formulas are assigned to the colourless and yellow 



isomeric compounds prepared by the interaction of phthalyl 



chloride with six substituted anilines, and also to the 



colourless and yellow />-methoxy- and ^-ethoxy-phenyl- 



phthalimides prepared some years ago by Piutti and' 



Abati. The isomeric compounds yield identical derivatives 



when acted upon by the Grignard agent. The second' 



paper, by Prof. Kuhara and Mr. Todo, deals with the 



Beckmann rearrangement. The authors conclude that the 



interchange of radicles which takes place, e.g., by the 



action of benzenesulphonic chloride on benzophenone- 



oxime is due to the dissociation of an acid radicle from. 



the nitrogen atom 



QHj.C.CgHs CeHg.C.CgHg 



II ^11 -^ 



N.0.S02.CbH,, N . . . OSOoCfiHg 



CsHg.C.O.SOo.CsHg 



II 

 N.CgHs 



A compound of the latter type, having the formula 



CeHg.C.O.CO.CIIj 



II 

 N.CeHg 



ha» actually been prepared as an unstable yellow oil, and 

 has been shown to pass over at once into benzanilide when 

 acted on by hydrochloric acid. 



The new edition — the third — of Prof. Karl Pearson's 

 " Grammar of Science " is to be issued by Messrs. A. and 

 C. Black in two volumes, the expansion of the text having 

 rendered it too large for one volume. There will be ary 

 entirely new chapter dealing with birth-rates, race suicide, 

 and degeneracy. The first volume will be published 

 immediately, and the second volume in ihe autumn of this 

 year. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



Astronomical Occurrences for April :— 

 April I. 5h. 4501. 'Venus in conjunction with the Moon 

 (Venus 0° 14' N.). 

 9, 7h. Neptune at quadrature to the Sun. 

 14. I5h. Mercury at greatest elongation east of the 



Sun (19° 42' E.). 

 14. lyh. 6m. Jupiter in conjunction with the Moon 



(Jupiter 1° 41' N.). 

 19. 23h. Uranus at quadrature. 



23. ijh. II m. Mars in conjunction with the Moon (Mars 



f 45' N.). 



24. 20h. Mercury stationary. 



28. loh. i6m. Sun eclipsed, invisible at Greenwich. 



28. I4h. 46m. Saturn in conjunction with the Moon 



(Saturn 2' 17' S.). 



29. loh. Venus in perihelion. 



30. i6h. Jupiter at opposition to the Sun. 



30. i8h. Saturn in conjunction with the Sun. 



Observations of the Zodiacal Light. — Some interest- 

 ing observations, illustrated by sketches, of the Zodiacal 

 Light are recorded by Herr Hoffmeister in No. 4484 of 

 the Astronomische Nachrichten. The observations were 

 made at Sonneberg, Thiiringen, during February and 

 March, 1910, when, it will be remembered, the light was 

 particularly visible during the apparition of comet 1910a, 

 which ii shown on one of Herr Hoffmeister 's sketches 

 (February 3). On this date, at yh. lom. (M.E.T.), the 

 summit of the brightest portion of the Light was at 

 a = 17°, 5 = -I- 10°, and on March 5, at 8h. (M.E.T.), it lay 

 in the pos-tion = 33-5°, 5 = -1-15-5°; Herr Hoffmeister also 

 gives the positions of a number of points marking the 

 northern and southern limits. To provide a scale for the 

 brightness of the various parts of the Light, Herr Hoff- 

 meister selects and names various parts of the Milky Way 

 with which he compared it ; this scale, of five steps, should 

 prove useful in making comparisons of the Light from 

 time to time. 



