24 



NA TURE 



[July 7, 1923 



Cambridge Meeting of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry. 



T' 



'HE International Union for Pure and Applied 

 Chemistry met at Cambridge on Sunday, 

 June 17, under the presidency of Sir W. J. Pope, 

 and carried out the programme previously outUned 

 in these columns (June i6, p. 825). The countries 

 which have now joined the Union are tlie following — 

 The Argentine, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czecho- 

 slovakia, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Greece, 

 Holland, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, Norway, Peru, 

 Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Spain, Switzerland, the 

 United States of America, Uruguay, and Yougoslavia ; 

 over one hundred delegates representing the chemical 

 interests of these countries were in attendance at 

 Cambridge . A feature of the meeting was the presenta- 

 tion of several comprehensive reports on subjects 

 which at the moment present special chemical interest ; 

 these were printed and distributed beforehand, and 

 at the meeting brief summaries were presented by their 

 authors, after which general discussions took place. 



The report on " The Study of Soap Solutions and 

 its Bearings upon Colloid Chemistry," presented by 

 Prof. J. W. McBain, included a statement of the chief 

 conclusions arrived at by its author in his extended 

 studies of the properties of salts of the higher fatty 

 acids. About one-half of the electrical conductivity 

 of a soap solution is due to a negative carrier, which 

 does not exhibit osmotic activity and is therefore 

 colloidal ; this is the ionic micelle, and consists of 

 highly charged and solvated ionic particles. Accom- 

 panying the ionic micelle is the undissociated colloidal 

 electrolyte, which consists of electrically neutral 

 micelli.' Interesting contributions to the discussion 

 were made by Prof. H. E. Armstrong and Prof. W. D. 

 Bancroft. Dr. E. K. Rideal presented a report on 

 " Recent Developments in Contact Catatysis," in 

 which the conception of Hardy and Langmuir, that 

 adsorption of reactants occurs in monomolecular 

 and orientated films, is shown capable of applica- 

 tion to the reactions at the surface of charcoal, studied 

 by Van Kruyt, and at the surface of the enzyme, 

 oxidase, present in liver tissue, as studied by Hopkins. 



The report contributed by Prof. J. F. Thorpe and 

 Dr. C. K. Ingold consisted in a summary of the 

 recent work of the authors on " Some New Aspects 

 of Tautomcrism." It is claimed that the original 

 definition of the term " tautomerism " should be 

 broadened, in accordance with modern investigation, 

 and that the term should apply to all reversible 

 isomeric change ; a reasoned classification of the 

 various types of tautomeric change which have been 

 more carefully studied during recent years is then 

 given. The report by Prof. F. G. Hopkins, on 

 " Chemical Mechanisms involved in the Oxidations 

 which occur in the Living Body," describes the success 

 which has attended the attempts to elucidate the 

 nature of the oxidation processes involved in living 

 tissues by a simple chemical mechanism. In the 

 resulting discussion, Prof. C. Aloureu drew a parallel 

 between the course of these apparently complex re- 

 actions and the catalytic oxidation of aldehydes which 

 he has himself studied. Mr. W. Barlow showed and 

 described a number of solid models which he has 

 devised for the interpretation, in accordance with the 

 valency volume law, of the results of the X-ray 

 analysis of crystalline materials by the Laue and 

 Bragg method ; incidentally he demonstrated an 

 hitherto unknown mode of partitioning space into 

 identical polyhedra. 



A large proportion of the time of the meeting was 

 devoted to the work of the numerous committees 

 which are engaged in the attempt to systematise 

 practice throughout the world in connexion with 

 nomenclature, abbreviations, standard methods, 

 tables of constants, and the like. 



It was decided that the Union will hold its meeting 

 next year in Copenhagen, on the invitation of the 

 chemical representatives of Denmark. At the con- 

 cluding ceremony honorary degrees of the University 

 of Cambridge were conferred on a number of dis- 

 tinguished visitors whose names were announced in 

 the preliminary statement on the meeting (Nature, 

 June 16, p. 825). 



Tercentenary of the Oxford Botanic Garden. 



T^HROUGHOUT the three hundred years of its 

 -^ existence, the Oxford Botanic Garden can never 

 have looked more radiant than it did on Saturday, 

 June 23, when it welcomed the distinguished com- 

 pany which met to celebrate the tercentenary of its 

 foundation. Sheltered by high and stately walls 

 from the incessant north-east winds which in spring 

 play havoc in more exposed gardens, it gave the 

 impression of serene beauty, the more impressive 

 because of the simplicity of the lines on which it 

 has been laid out. 



Those, however, who know the rigours of the 

 Oxford climate will ascribe the luxuriance of growth 

 of the plants in the garden rather to skill in 

 cultivation than to good fortune with respect of 

 site. For although the walls which surround the 

 garden do, indeed, give shelter, the soil is none too 

 kindly and the Thames water is too near the surface 

 to make cultivation a light or easy task. It was, 

 therefore, no less a tribute to their own perspicacity 

 than to Mr. Baker, the superintendent of the gardens, 

 that more than one speaker referred in terms of 

 admiration to the skill in cultivation which the 

 gardens displayed. 



The Chancellor of the University, Lord Curzon, 

 who presided at the tercentenary celebrations, spoke 



NO. 2801, VOL. 112] 



on gardens with the simple sincerity which proves 

 his title to be ranked among the goodly company of 

 true gardeners, and nothing in his speech gave more 

 pleasure to the company which were met together 

 under the trees of the garden than his remini- 

 scences of the happy hours which as undergraduate 

 and fellow he had passed in the Oxford Botanic 

 Garden. For surely this old garden has for three 

 centuries irradiated a happy influence on successive 

 generations whose feet have walked therein and 

 whose eyes have been refreshed by its scenes of peace- 

 ful beauty. 



Sir David Prain, who followed the Chancellor, 

 traced in a masterly way the history of the Garden 

 from the time of its foundation, by the beneficence 

 of Henry Lord Danvers, on St. James's Day (July 

 25), 1622. He reminded his hearers that it was in 

 this Garden that the first greenhouses erected in 

 England were put up, and that it was there that 

 experiments were first made in methods of heating 

 them. Bobert the elder and the younger, men of 

 great wisdom ; Morison, the great professor of botany 

 and a pioneer of systematic botany ; Sherard, the 

 founder of the chair which bears his name ; Sib- 

 thorpe, who deserves the title of a great botanical 

 explorer ; and Daubeny, versatile and generous. 



