42 REPORT — 1887. 



papers, and in view of the probable heavy cost of such an undertaking, 

 it is not considered by the Committee possible for the British Association, 

 either alone or acting in concert with the special scientific societies, to 

 undertake the translation of entire papei'S from foreign journals.' 



It was mentioned in the course of the discussion that no complete 

 set of abstracts of papers in physics is published in English ; and the 

 advantage of such abstracts being generally recognised. Professor Reinold 

 undertook, at the request of the Committee, to bring the subject before 

 the Council of the Physical Society of Loudon and report the result to 

 the Committee. 



Professor Reinold reports as follows : — 



' The Council of the Physical Society have decided that they are not 

 at present in a position to undertake so vast a work as the publication 

 of abstracts of foreign physical papers or even to assist in any adequate 

 manner in such an undertaking. It has been decided, however, to 

 publish from time to time translations in extenso of important papers 

 appearing in foreign journals.' 



The Committee have found it unnecessary to expend any portion of its 

 grant. 



Report of a Committee, consisting of Professors McLeod and 

 Eamsay and Messrs, J. T. Cundall and W. A. Shenstone (Secre- 

 tary), appointed to fiirther investigate the Action of the Silent 

 Discharge of Electricity on Oxygen and other Gases. 



The work of this Committee has been actively continued during the past 

 year. An apparatus has been constructed for the preparation and storage 

 of gases in a pure state. This apparatus has been put together entirely 

 before the blowpipe, and has no taps nor joints except such as are protected 

 by mercury, and therefore affords the best guarantee of the purity of 

 the gas prepared and stored within it at present attainable. The con- 

 structing of this apparatus has occupied a considerable period, and has 

 prevented the execution of so much of the work that it is proposed to 

 carry out as would otherwise have been possible ; nevertheless consider- 

 able pi'ogress has been made in several directions. Oxygen has been 

 prepared which, from the mode of preparation, may be presumed to con- 

 tain not more than one part of nitrogen in two hundred million parts of 

 the gas ; and, though it is not possible to obtain reagents of a similar degree 

 of purity, by acting on the gas with specially purified phosphorus it has 

 been established by experiment that the gas is undoubtedly in a very pure 

 state. 



Very pure oxygen has been enclosed with phosphorus pentoxide in 

 sealed tubes for periods of many weeks and subsequently submitted to 

 the action of the silent discharge of electricity. The results of repeated 

 experiments show that such oxygen is freely convertible into ozone. 

 Whether pure and dry oxygen is more capable of ozonification than 

 oxygen in a less pure state has, however, still to be decided by repeti- 

 tions of the experiments with various forms of apparatus. But the 

 variable efficiency of ozone-generators under apparently identical condi- 

 tions has to be overcome before the results of quantitative experiments can 

 be compai'ed one with another ; therefore the Committee ai'e at present 



