April 29, 1880] 



NATURE 



625 



esting and best authenticated is that of Scandium, which has 

 been separated from Norwegian Gadolinite and Yttrotitanite 

 by Nelson and Clive. I had the advantage, when last year in 

 jhe University of Upsala, of being shown the spectrum of this 

 metal by Professor Thalen, and of making the personal ac- 

 quaintance of its distinguished discoverers, who showed me 

 the enormous amount of material they worked upon in order to 

 obtain the specimen I saw. Scandium, according to Clive, has 

 the atomic weight 45, and the properties of its compounds are 

 almost exactly those predicted by Mendelejeff of the hypothetical 

 element Ekaboron, to which the atomic weijht 44 was assigned. 

 We have thus apparently, for the second time, a remarkable 

 verification of Mendelejeff's sagacity and the importance of his 

 so-called Periodic Law. I may here refer to the service Mr. 

 Crookes has rendered by publishing a translation of a revise of 

 Mendelejeffs celebrated paper in Liebi^s Annalen, 



The Report of the Research Fund will be found in the 

 Appendix, and it is not nece-sary for me to enter upon its 

 details. There is much work always to be done of the highest 

 importance to the advancement of chemistry, but which does 

 not offer sufficient attraction to induce the devotion of the time, 

 per.-everance, and money necessary for its accomplishment ; here 

 the Research Fund steps in and removes one of the obstacles. 

 In other cases, where the necessary zeal and talent exist to 

 commence a valuable research, the chemist may not be in a 

 position to devote time and money for the undertaking ; but 

 with funds at its disposal our Society can prevent the oppor- 

 tunity from being lost. I trust that those whose position of 

 fortune permits of their doing it will contribute largely to the 

 Research Fund, and thus promote the advancement of a science 

 which may have contributed greatly to their own prosperity. 



The Drapers' Company for the last three years conbibuted 

 105/. per annum to the Research Fund, and the Goldsmiths' 

 Company at the commencement gave a munificent donation of 

 1,000/. ; the City Companies cannot devote a portion of their 

 rest revenues more ' usefully than in promoting scientific re- 

 searches, for with the advance of knowledge will the prosperity 

 of our country develop. The past year has been one of 

 peaceful prosperity in our Society, and we have had a large 

 accession to our members, and the alteration of the bye-law 

 relating to the election of candidates has, on the whole, worked 

 well ; but as it has been frequently necessary to postpone the 

 ballot for want of sufficient attendance, it has therefore been 

 thought desirable to make a change in it. 



Appendix. 



Third Report of the Research Fund Committee. — During 

 the past session the following sums have been granted from 

 the Research Fund by the Councd on the recommendation of 

 the Research Fund Couimittee : — ■ 



30/. to Mr. M. Whitley Williams, for the elaboration of an 

 improved method of Organic Analysis. 



25/. to Mr. M. M. P. Muir, for the study of the Chemical 

 Habitudes and Physical Consiants of Bismuth Compounds. 



15/. to Mr. J. M. Thomson, for experiments on the action of 

 Isomorphous Bodies in exciting the Crystalis.ition of Super- 

 saturated Solutions. 



50/. to Dr. Wright, for the continuation of his investigations of 

 certain points in Chemical Dynamics. 



25/ to Mr. F. D. Brown, for the continuation of his investi- 

 gation of the theory of Fractional I istillation. 



30/. to Mr. Bolas, for the preparation and investigation of 

 Alloys and Compounds of Chromium. 



20.'. to Dr. Japp, for the investigation of the action of the 

 Organo-rinc Compounds on Quinones. 



100/. to Dr. Armstrong, for the determination of certain 

 physical properties, especially the Refractive Indices of Typical 

 Chemical Compounds. 



100/. to Dr. Wright, for the determination of Chemical Affinity 

 in terms of Electrical Magnitudes. 



ico/. to Mr. F. D. Brown, for the determination of the Vapour 

 Tension of Pure Compounds and of Mixtures. 



The two last-mentioned grants were made in February of this 

 year, the others in June, 1S79. 



A donation of 105/. from the Worshipful Company of 

 Drapers, and one of 100/. for which the Society is indebted to 

 the generosity of its president, Mr. De la Rue, are important 

 items in the income of the fund for the year. The Com inttee 

 desire to point out to the Council and to the Fellows at large the 

 desirability of obtaining further additions to the fund, for without 



such contributions as these the income arising from investments 

 would have been quite inadequate to meet the legitimate demands 

 upon the fund. It is to be expected, and indeed we hope, that 

 these demands will increase rather than diminish, and it is 

 therefore especially necessary that efforts should be made to 

 increase the income of the fund. 



During the session the result of several investigations, in aid 

 of which grants have been made from the Research Fund, have 

 been communicated to the Society. 



Dr. Tilden, in a paper on terpene and terpinol (Trans., 

 1879, 286-290), after describing several properties of these 

 bodies, adduces evidence to prove that the latter is a constituent 

 of some essential oils, as oil of lemon and cajuput. 



Prof. Thorp has described (Trans., 1S79, 296-309) the 

 results of his examination of so-called abietene, the exudation 

 from the Californian nut or Digger pine (Finns satimana). 

 He finds it to consist of the almost pure paraffin, normal 

 heptane, C ; H 16 , and having thus obtained a considerable quantity 

 of this hydrocarbon, he has availed himself of the opportunity 

 to make a series of most valuable determinations of several of 

 its physical constants. 



Dr. Wright, in conjunction with Messrs. Luff and Rennie 

 [Trans. 1879, 475-524), has presented a voluminous third 

 report on his researches on some points of chemical dynamics, 

 describing at length the result of experiments on the relation 

 between the rate of the reduction of cupric oxide by hydrogen 

 or carbon monoxides, time, and temperature. 



Mr. F. D. Brown has described the behaviour of mixtures 

 of benzene and carbon bisulphide when distilled under various 

 conditions as a contribution to the theory of fractional distillation 

 [Trans., 1879, 547-562). In a second communication (Trans., 

 18S0, 49-60) he has embodied the results of the comparison of 

 the value of the different methods of fractional distillation. 



Drs. Armstrong and Tilden have presented an account 

 (Trans., 1S79, 733-760) of their examination of the action of 

 sulphuric acid under various conditions on the terpenes. One 

 of the chief results of their investigation is to establish the fact 

 that no such substance as terebene exists, the liquid hitherto 

 described under this name being simply impure camphene. 



Dr. Bedson (Trans., 18S0, 90-102) has carefully examined 

 a number of derivatives of phenvlacetic acid, an acid which has 

 now become of special interest to the chemist on account of its 

 relation to indigo. 



The investigation of Messrs. Hartley and Huntington on 

 the action of organic compounds in absorbing the ultra-violet 

 rays of the spectrum referred to in the last report has since been 

 published in the Transactions of the Royal Society. These 

 gentlemen also have since submitted to the Royal Society an 

 account of the results of the combination of the investigations. 



Dr. Tilden has communicated the chief results of experiments 

 on the action of hydrochloric acid upon terpenes — a portion of 

 the subject for which he received a grant from the Society — to 

 the Chemical Society of Berlin (Btr., 12, 1131). 



The experiments on the action of iodine on terpenes and on 

 the saturated hydrocarbon, referred to by Dr. Armstrong in the 

 last report, have been pirtially described in communications to 

 the Berlin Chemical Society (Bar., 12, 1756-1790). The 

 publication of the observations on camphor has been delayed in 

 order to render thein as complete as possible. 



I>r. Japp has forwarded 10 the Secretaries a paper which 

 will be read at the next meeting, in which he de-cribes the 

 results of his investigations of the action of zinc ethyl on 

 phenanthraquinone. 



Several gentlemen wh 1 have received grants, but not yet cim- 

 municati-d their results t) the Society, viz., Messrs. Bolas, 

 ■Burghardt, Dupre, Jago, Sheustone, and Williams, hive 

 favoured the Committee with preliminary reports of the 

 progress mode in their investigations. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



CAMBRIDGE. — A little more than one half of the total co-t of 

 the ne»v hall of Newnham College has now been received or 

 paid, and the amalg 1 nation 'f Xewnham Hall with the Lecture 

 Associntion may be described s almost completed. To ay fo.- 

 the buildings and furni h them about 5,000/. more will be 

 needed. The laboratory and gymnasium are excellent. 



Mrssi-s. Shaw (Lmnia lUel College) and Glazebrook (Trinity 



