540 
NATURE 
[Jury 23, 1914 
zoy in vertical force. Attainment of the limit in any | since 1783,’’ by Dr. C. O. Paullin, of the Carnegie 
one of the three elements qualifies. Taking the 
twenty-four years, 1885 to 1908, at Pavlovsk, the 
greatest and least annual numbers of disturbed days 
were respectively 90 in 1892 and 6 in 1go1. The 
months of greatest and least disturbance were respec- 
tively March, with an average of 49 days, and 
December, with an average of 2:2. There is an 
interesting comparison of the diurnal variation on 
the days immediately before and after selected dis- 
turbed days, the disturbed days themselves, and 
normal days. The paper is full of tables of numerical 
results representing much labour, as to the signi- 
ficance of some of which opinions are likely to differ. 
Dr. Leyst apparently adheres to an earlier conclusion 
of his that the secular change of declination is least 
during sunspot minimum years. This conclusion is 
scarcely likely to obtain general acceptance in view of 
the remarkably large secular variation of declination 
observed in western Europe since 19I0. 
THE artificial preparation of an important plant 
constituent which has hitherto resisted chemical syn- 
thesis has just been accomplished by Messrs. H. 
Wieland and R. S. Wishart (Berichte, 1914, p. 2082) 
in the case of inositol. This substance, it is shown, 
can be readily obtained by reducing hexahydroxy- 
benzene with hydrogen gas in presence of finely- 
divided palladium black. As the potassium compound 
of hexahydroxybenzene is formed by the action of 
carbon monoxide on potassium, a simple method 
exists for the direct synthesis of inositol from its 
elements The artificially obtained substance is 
identical in all respects with the naturally occurring 
compound. 
THE association of vanadium with petroleum and 
asphalt and its relationship to the formation of asphalt 
deposits, is dealt with by Messrs. R. M. Bird and 
W. S. Calcott in a paper published in the Bulletin of 
the Philosophical Society, University of Virginia. 
From the experiments recorded in this communication 
it is suggested that the Peruvian deposits of vanadium 
sulphide and oxide, which occur in alternate layers 
with asphalt, are probably formed in the following 
way. Vanadates in solution in ground water come 
into contact with oils bearing hydrogen sulphide, and 
thus yield vanadium sulphide, which may travel with 
the oil and be deposited by meeting with carbon dioxide, 
In presence of atmospheric oxygen the vanadium 
sulphide acts as an oxygen carrier, and converts the 
accumulating mass of oil into asphalt. That this 
latter change may rapidly occur is shown by actual 
experiment in presence of oxygen, but no ‘‘asphalt- 
ing’’ of mineral oil occurs when oxygen is excluded. 
The formation of asphalt thus appears to be essentially 
an oxidation process in which active catalytic agents, 
such as vanadium, play a part. 
Tue Carnegie Institution of Washington has now 
added to its series of ‘‘ Papers of the Department of 
Historical Research,’’ which are being produced under 
the editorship of Mr. J. Franklin Jameson, a volume 
of 642 pages entitled ‘‘Guide to the Materials in 
London Archives for the History of the United States 
NO. 12334, ViClNO3i 
Institution, and Prof. F. L. Paxson, of the University 
of Wisconsin. The book extends, in respect of almost 
all portions of the British archives, from 1783 to 1860. 
The scope of the volume is confined to the Public 
Record Office, the archives of the offices of the Central 
Government of Great Britain in London, and the 
manuscript department of the British Museum. The 
book is one of a series of guides to the materials 
for American history in foreign archives which have 
been published or are to be published by the Carnegie 
Institution. Volumes relating to the materials in the 
archives of Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Spain, Italy, and 
Germany have been issued already, and noticed in 
these columns from time to time. The group con- 
cerned with English archives consists of four volumes, 
| of which the present is in logical order the fourth. 
In the Bulletin de la Société d'’Encouragement 
(vol. cxxi., p. 425) Prof. Camille Matignon gives, under 
| the title, ‘‘A New Industry—The Rational Utilisation 
of Distillery Vinasses,”’ an interesting account of the 
Effront process for the recovery of the nitrogen and 
potash values of the waste liquors remaining after 
distillation of the alcohol from the fermented liquors 
prepared from grain or the molasses of the beetroot- 
| sugar industry. The Effront process has been work- 
ing experimentally on the large scale during the past 
three years, and many of the practical difficulties have 
already been overcome. It consists in subjecting the 
vinasses to fermentation by a butyric organism isolated 
from soil. The fermentation takes place in distinctly 
alkaline solution and converts the whole of the 
nitrogen of amino-acids or amides, such as glycine, 
asparagine, or glutamic acid, completely into 
ammonia; the betaine is transformed into trimethyl- 
amine, and the residues of the acids into free fatty 
acids, such as acetic acid and its homologues, succinic 
acid, malic and tartaric acids. Processes have been 
devised for separating the ammonia and the trimethyl- 
amine, the latter of which is decomposed by heating 
at 1000° into methane and hydrogen cyanide; the 
methane is used as a source of energy, and the 
hydrogen cyanide is absorbed as sodium cyanide. The 
experimental factory already produces 6 tons of acetic 
acid and 1 ton of butyric acid each day; the latter 
acid, a new technical product, has already found appli- 
cation in tanneries, and at the moment the demand 
exceeds the supply. 
A COMPLETE set of catalogues of the Société Gene- 
voise pour la Construction d’Instruments de Physique 
et de Mécanique has been received from Mr. O. Paul 
Monckton, of 87 Victoria Street, Westminster, who is 
the sole agent for Great Britain and the Colonies. The 
/ seven lists are beautifully produced, excellently illus- 
trated, and arranged in a manner which makes refer- 
ence to them easy. Among the subjects dealt with in 
different catalogues may be mentioned : exact measur- 
ing machines for industrial and laboratory use, general 
measuring instruments, including kathetometers, 
micrometers, dynamometers, goniometers, and so on; 
apparatus for the study of general physics and 
mechanics; microscopes, spectrometers; and electro- 
magnets. 
