218 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 
CHEMISTRY OF THE VOLATILIZATION 
PROCESS.* 
BY THOMAS VARLEY? AND C. M. BOUTON. 
To the lowlands dweller an excursion to the high- 
lands may prove both adventurous and instructive, and 
a prolonged stay in the strange environment may com- 
pel a sweeping reconstruction of fundamental ideas— 
not so much a substitution of new ideas for old as an 
expansion of the old ideas to accomodate new facts and 
conditions. The chemist accustomed to reactions at 
ordinary temperatures may be pardoned a somewhat 
similar feeling when he ventures among the peaks of 
high temperatures. Our everyday experiences lie within 
a rather narrow temperature range, from about forty 
degrees below zero to forty-five above on the centigrade 
scale. Any temperatures outside this range are ordinarily 
the result of a definitely planned excursion which offers 
elements of novelty and appeals to the imagination. It 
is true that history hardly reaches back beyond the time 
when men made use of fire for the cooking of their food, 
and the smelting of their metals, but the formulation of 
exact laws governing the behavior of matter and energy 
at high temperatures is strictly a modern achievement, 
while the mere obtaining of very low temperatures at will 
is altogether recent. 
The formulation of such laws is necessary for con- 
tinued metallurgical progress. Through all time up to 
1Published by permission of the Director U. S. Bureau of Mines. 
2Metallurgist, U. S. Bureau of Mines. 
3’Physical Chemist, U. S. Bureau of Mines. 
