89: 



NA TURE 



[December 30, 1922 



of scientific publications, containing communica- 

 tions in European languages, mainly German and 

 English. 



Thus there have recently reached this country the 

 first issues of two such new serial publications, the 

 Japanese Journal of Botany and the Acta Phytochimica. 



The Japanese Journal of Botany is only one such 

 publication of nine which are being issued by the 

 National Research Council, Department of Education, 

 Japan. Besides a long communication (53 pp.) by 

 Saito upon the fungi (yeast) occurring naturally in 

 the atmosphere at Tokio, in which a connexion is 

 traced between the number of these organisms present 

 and the meteorological conditions, a series of abstracts 

 follow which summarise the more important papers 

 on botany and allied subjects which have appeared 

 in Japan during January-June 1921. No fewer than 

 thirty-nine papers are thus reviewed, many of 

 economic importance and some of very general 

 interest. 



The first number of the Acta Phytochimica, dated 

 March 1922, contains two papers. In the first 

 Asahina and Fujita summarise the researches pub- 

 lished by them so far only in the Japanese Journal 

 of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan. These 

 investigations enable them to assign a constitutional 

 formula to anemonin and to the most important acid 

 derivatives so far obtained from it. 



Anemonin is a crystalline product obtained from 

 the acrid ranunculus oil distilled from fresh plants of 

 various species of the Ranunculaceae and extraction 



of the distillate with ether, benzol, or chloroform, 

 but anemonin itself is not the acrid principle. The 

 Japanese workers have a very large phytochemical 

 field in the many interesting natural products of 

 Eastern Asia, and the second paper, by Majima 

 and Kuroda, deals with the pigment extracted by 

 cold benzene from the dried outer portion of the 

 root of Lithospermum Erythrorhizon. The main con- 

 stituent of this pigment has been isolated in pure 

 crystalline form and is described as the monoacetyl 

 derivative of the compound, C le H 10 O 6 , which the 

 authors have named shikonin (from the Japanese 

 name for the plant " shikon.") 



It is proposed to issue one volume of Acta Phyto- 

 chimica a year, each volume to consist of about 

 350 pages. The editor is Prof. K. Shibata, Botanical 

 Garden, Koishikawa, Tokyo. 



The two papers now published are written, one in 

 German and one in English ; communications in 

 French are also acceptable for publication. The 

 journal states that it aims at ensuring a closer 

 correlation between chemical and physiological 

 studies of plant constituents, but these first papers 

 are essentially chemical in outlook. Both journals 

 are well printed, in clear type on good paper, with 

 curves and tables adequately reproduced. In the 

 Japanese Journal of Botany three plates are included. 

 Curves and drawings are very well reproduced in 

 these ; a lack of contrast in a series of photographs 

 of yeast colonies on agar may be the fault of the 

 original photographs. 



Colloid Chemistry. 

 By Prof. W. C. McC. Lewis. 



THAT increasing attention is being paid to the 

 subject of colloid chemistry is becoming 

 manifest in various directions. Already the subject 

 has taken its place in the chemical instruction of 

 some if not of all our universities, while the techno- 

 logical literature shows (though as yet to a rather 

 limited extent) that the significance of colloidal 

 behaviour is no longer overlooked in a number of 

 technical operations. The subject is one of com- 

 paratively recent growth, for, although originating 

 with Graham more than sixty years ago, its import- 

 ance has begun to be realised only within the last 

 twenty-five years. 



It is not altogether surprising, therefore, that there 

 are still a number of people engaged in chemical 

 work to whom colloid chemistry has not as yet made 

 an effective appeal. To a large extent the further 

 recognition of the subject will depend not only upon 

 the measure of success attending the publication of 

 works such as text-books and memoirs which aim 

 at bringing the subject within the scope of ordered 

 presentation, but also upon the efforts of agencies 

 the aim of which is to correlate the scientific principles 

 and generalisations (in so far as they exist at present) 

 with technical problems and practice, and to demon- 

 strate how numerous and varied are the industrial 

 operations in which colloid considerations are funda- 

 mentally involved. In the latter connexion a very 

 useful service has been performed during the past 

 1. a .. ars by a committee of the British Association 

 in publishing a series of reports on Colloid Chemistry 

 and its General and Industrial Applications. The 

 fourth of these reports, 1 a compilation of more than 

 380 pages, has been issued, and in view of its 

 undoubted importance a brief indication of its 

 general nature will not be without interest. 



1 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research : British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. Fourth Report on Colloid Chemistry 

 and its General and Industrial Applications. Pp. 3S2. (London : H.M. 

 Stationery Office, 1922.) 5s. 6d. net. 



NO. 2774, VOL. I IO] 



As in previous reports the subject matter is con- 

 sidered so far as possible under two heads, namely, 

 subjects mainly academic in nature, and subjects 

 mainly technical. Under the first head we find the 

 following sections : Colloids in analytical problems, 

 cataphoresis, colloid systems in solid crystalline 

 media, molecular attraction, membrane equilibria, 

 disperse systems in gases, the theory of lubrication, 

 and the application of colloid chemistry to mineralogy 

 and petrology. Under the second head are grouped : 

 Colloid chemistry of soap boiling, flotation processes, 

 catalytic hydrogenation, the role of colloids in metal 

 deposition, rubber, and colloidal fuels. Each section 

 has been written by a man who is specially conversant 

 with the subject which he treats, and it may be added 

 that the entire work here represented — and it amounts 

 in the aggregate to much — has been given gratuitously. 



Among subjects of such a divergent kind it is not 

 easy to discriminate. Some readers will be attracted 

 by the comparative novelty of the idea of introducing 

 colloidal considerations at all into such problems as 

 metallic alloys, mineralogy, and petrology, or the 

 subject of lubrication. Others will be specially - 

 interested in obtaining some definite and clear 

 information on subjects which possess a certain 

 degree of familiarity, but about which most of us 

 have, it is to be feared, somewhat confused. ideas, 

 subjects such as soap boiling, or ore-flotation, or 

 catalytic hydrogenation. The fact that the latter 

 two subjects are dealt with at all indicates the wide 

 view which the committee quite rightly takes of the 

 nature and range of its activities. The enormously 

 wide scope of certain of the subjects themselves 

 is well demonstrated by the article on disperse 

 systems in gases, which ranges from the pollution 

 of the atmosphere, metallurgical smokes, and problems 

 of chemical warfare to Millikan's work on the charge 

 of the electron. By way of contrast we find in the 

 section on molecular attraction a minute and searching 



