TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 635 



educational work as constituting equal claims with mere 'scholarship' in the 

 appointment of head masters. 



Some recent depreciations of qualitative analysis were remarked upon, analysis 

 rationally taught being held to be a good mental discipline available for class- 

 teachmg, and a sort of stock on which might be engrafted a great deal of theoretical 

 as well as experimental teaching, the work of the lecture-room and the exercises 

 of the laboratory being made each to supplement the other. With the cry that 

 the great difficulty is the want of good text-books the author has no sympathy ; 

 experimental science can only be really taught by men who are independent of such 

 extraneous aids. The common notion that experimental science is a ' refuge for the 

 destitute ' in intellectual matters was strongly denounced as an absurd fallacy, the 

 admission of which is nothing more nor less than the practical surrender of' our 

 position to the ' classical ' and ' mathematical ' men who make up the majority of 

 the stafi'of every public school. 



The author dealt with the 'objects,' 'difficulties,' and 'methods' of teaching 

 chemistry ; but on these points many of his suggestions had been already pul; 

 forward in tlie committee's printed report. 



The remainder of the paper dealt with examinations, and various suggestions 

 were made as to how these might be improved, so as to discourage the mere exer- 

 cise of the faculty of receptivity for examinational purposes, and to place examines 

 who had been brought into touch with scientific research and had had the spirit of 

 inquiry awakened in them at a jjreater advantage than at present. 



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. 

 The following Papers were read : — 

 1. Discussion on Valency, opened ly Professor H. E. Armstrong, F.B.S. 



2. Evidence of tie Tetravalency of Oxygen derived from ilie Constitution of 

 the Azona]phthol-Compounds. By Professor E. Meldola. FB8 

 F.C.S., F.I.C.^ 



The author conamenced by pointing out the differences between the azo-deriyatives 

 of a-naphthylamine and a-naphthol as compared with the correspondino- azo-com- 

 pounds of the /S-series. The a-derivatives have all the properties of am'idoazo- or 

 oxyazo-compounds, and show in all their reactions the presence of NH, or HO. The 

 ^-compou^ds, on the other hand, not only differ from the others in "physical pro- 

 perties, such as melting-point and crystalline form, but in their chemical properties 

 they show much less distinctly the presence of NH, and HO. They are diazotisable 

 only with much difficulty, and the insolubility of the oxy-compounds in aqueous 

 alkahes appears to indicate the absence of hydroxyl. 



The author next proceeded to review the different formulae which had been 

 proposed for the compounds of the (3-series, the first attempt to represent these on 

 a ditlerent type to the a-compounds having been made by Liebermann (I.), himself 

 (11.), and Zincke (HI.) : — 



X<NHyY X"O^H/^.Y xYV'^-'' 

 ^0/ \nh\ \OorNH 



I. H. HI. 



Since these were suggested in 1883-4 evidence has been accumulated which 

 the author considered as being distinctly unfavourable to the proposed formula. 

 It has been found by Nietzki and Goll, and by Zincke himself, that the azo-deriva- 



' Published in cxtenso in the Phil. Mag. Nov. 1888. 



