xxxii Contents 



The following personal experience furnishes a good 

 example of the practice of the French Academy in dealing 

 with papers. 



In the summer of 1867, while working in the laboratory 

 of Wurtz in the Ecole de Medecine in Paris, I made some 

 investigations on the products of the reaction of perchloride 

 of phosphorus on salts of isethionic acid. I collected the 

 results in a short paper and, with Wurtz's approval, I proposed 

 to offer it to the Academy. At that date Wurtz himself was 

 not yet "of the Institute," but there was a standing custom 

 that papers by his tlbves were presented by Balard, the 

 veteran discoverer of bromine. Accordingly I took my paper 

 with me and made a formal call on M. Balard. who received 

 me with the greatest kindness and courtesy in his study, 

 wearing as had been the fashion in his younger days, a black 

 frock-coat and a white neck-cloth taken twice round his neck. 

 When I had expressed my desire that he would do me the 

 honour to present my paper to the Academy, he replied at 

 once that he would have the greatest pleasure in doing so. 

 I handed him the paper, he presented it the following Monday 

 and it was published in the Comptes Rendus of the next week 1 . 



No. 17. NOMENCLATURE AND NOTATION IN CALORIMETRY. (From 



Nature, May 12, 1898, Vol. LVIII, p. 30.) ... . . 416 



The motive for this paper was furnished by the incon- 

 venience caused by the use of different units of heat and of 

 different names for the same unit of heat, by writers on 

 calorimetric subjects . . . . . . . .416 



As a general principle, compound units should be expressed 

 by compound names. 



In the early literature of the equivalence of heat and work, 

 the unit of work was chosen on this principle, and in it we 

 meet with only such names as foot-pound, kilogramme-metre, 

 and the like, which explain themselves. 



The recommendation made in the paper is that the unit of 

 heat should be chosen on the same principle and should be 

 called gram-degree (Celsius), pound-degree (Fahrenheit), or 

 thelike 417 



No fancy names should be used for such important units. 

 An oceanographical example is given of the use of a special 



1 ' Sur quelques derives de 1'acide isethionique. Note de M. J. V. Buchanan 

 presentee par M. Balard.' Comptes Rendus, i September 1867, Vol. LXV, p. 41-! 



