I90 



NATURE 



[October 17, 191: 



The Transactions of the American Institute of 

 Chemical Engineers. Vol. iv. , igii. Pp. iv-i- 

 514. (New York: D. Van Noslrand and Co.; 

 London: E. and F. N. Spon, Ltd., 1912.) 

 Price 305. net. 



Two addresses delivered by the president, Dr. 

 F. \\'. Frerichs, at Chicag-o and Washington are 

 chiefly devoted to descriptions of six problems in 

 chemical engineering practice. One of these, the 

 extraction of bismuth from carbonaceous ores, 

 consists of a complete account of the recovery of 

 this metal from ores containing- i oz. of lead, 

 15 oz. of silver 5 per cent, lead, and 5 per 

 cent, of bismuth. The metal can lie prc-duced 

 greatly in excess of the constmiption, which in 

 1910 was about 200,000 lb for the United States. 

 It is used almost exclusively for medicinal 

 purposes. 



Mr. Clarence Hal!, explosi\es engineer, LInited 

 States Bureau of Mines, contributes an interesting- 

 paper on explosives used in engineering and 

 mining operations. The apparatus used at the 

 Pittsburg testing station for the determination of 

 the relative energy and efliciency of various ex- 

 plosives, such as black powder, granulated nitro- 

 glycerine powders, and nitro-glycerine and am- 

 monia dynamites, is described. Mettegang's 

 recorder for determining the rate of detonation is 

 used, and velocities of detonation up to 6246 

 metres per second have been found for 60 per 

 cent, nitroglycerine dynamites. The recorder has 

 a soot-covercd bronze drum 500 mm. in circum- 

 ference which can be driven up to 105 revolutions 

 per second, and marks are made thereon by 

 electrical contact devices. 



The manufacture of gelatine is described by 

 Mr. Ludwig A. Thiele. The raw luaterials are 

 bones, from which osseine is derived, and hide- 

 stock. The process is the same for the osseine 

 and hidestock, the former being got from the 

 bones by treatment with either hydrochloric, 

 phosphoric, or sulphurous acid, during which 

 process a \-aluable by-product, acid phosphate, is 

 produced. A report of the Committee on Chemical 

 Engineering Education is included in the volume, 

 together with other papers on manufacturing 

 processes. 



Science French Course. By C. W. Paget Moffatt, 

 Pp. x + 305. (London: W. B. Clive, Univer- 

 sity Tutorial Press, Ltd., 1912.) Price 35. 6d. 

 The object of this book is, the author says, to 

 provide students of science who desire to read 

 French scientific literature with the necessary 

 minimum of FYencli grammar, and a selection of 

 extracts from which some practice may be ob- 

 tained. For students with no knovi'ledge of 

 French at all the amount of assistance given in 

 translation appears rather inadequate, but for 

 those who have forgotten what was learnt at 

 school and wish to revise rapidly, the book should 

 prove of great assistance. The extracts will form 

 excellent reading in French for boys and girls in 

 the upper forms of secondary schools who are 

 taking a course of work in science. 

 NO. 2242, VOL. 90] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor docs )iot liohi himself responsible for 

 opinion'^ expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Synthesis of Matter. 



In the issue of Nature for July iS last, there 

 appears an important letter froi"n Sir William Ramsay 

 dealing with the appearance of hydrogen, helium, 

 and neon in the glass of exhausted X-ray bulbs. This 

 result is of great interest, and mav have an important 

 bearing in addition to that mentioned by the author. 



It is well known that X-ray bulbs onlv possess a 

 limited period of life and go " soft," as it is termed, 

 as if a small amount of gas previously adsorbed by 

 the glass had been set . free. The thought occurred 

 to me some time ago that the softening might not 

 be due to this cause, but to rare gases, such as helium, 

 actinium, &c., produced from the eether of the vacuum 

 becoming charged with energy from the kathode. It 

 i-; such gases which are found in the process known 

 as inorganic evolution in the hottest stars and nebute, 

 and discovered there first by Lockyer, before their 

 terrestrial occurrence in cleveite and elsewhere was 

 detected by Ramsay. 



If elements can decompose with evolution of energy 

 as in radio-activity, it -would seem not impossible 

 that matter might be synthetised -with absorption of 

 energy, and that a first stage in such a process might 

 be the formation of electrons by the charging of aether 

 with a permanent form of energy, followed by a syn- 

 thesis of ordinary matter in which such gases as 

 helium -would be a first product. . 



Attempts were made by me at the time to obtain 

 evidences of helium from exiiausted X-ray bulbs, but 

 failed, as I now believe, from the small ciuantity of 

 gas available and my lack of training in this very 

 specialised field of manipulation. It would be in- 

 teresting to carry out a prolonged experiment with an 

 X-rav bulb run for days, and pumped out at intervals, 

 in order to ascertain whether such development of 

 helium took place. 



It is, of course, possible that any gas so arising 

 might come from the electrodes and glass undergoing 

 atomic di'iinlegration, but the possible orig-in of matter 

 from aether when there is an available supply of energy 

 at high potential should not be lost sight of. Theory 

 suggests that such a formation is possible, if matter 

 consists of vortex rings or other permanent forms of 

 periodic movement of tiie jether, and it may be that 

 in the cliromosphere spectra there is evidence of pro- 

 duction of matter occurring at the present time. 



Benjamin Moore. 



The Bio-Chen-iii-al Department, the University, 

 Liverpool, October 0. 



The Jaw from the Stalagmite in Kent's Cavern. 



I AM much obliged to Prof. Keith for his reply to 

 my letter on the Kent's Cavern jaw, from the granular 

 stalagmite. As my friend Prof. Boyd Dawkins, who 

 read the paper, was a member of the Kent's Cavern 

 Committee, and reported in iS6q on the fossils found 

 up to that date, I naturally took for granted that all 

 the facts of the case woukl be before Section H, and 

 that Prof. Keith was challenging the evidence. 



