10 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. A^OL. XL^ai. No. 1201 



carry goods as determined by the Shipping 

 Board. 



The Shipping Board also exercises the 

 conirol of interstate commerce by water, its 

 powers being analogous for water trans- 

 portation to those which have been exer- 

 cised by the Interstate Commerce Commis- 

 sion in regard to railroads. However, the 

 powei-s of the Shipping Board extend be- 

 yond those of the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission in that the board is allowed to 

 approve any agreement between common 

 carriers by water concerning rates, accom- 

 modations, pooling, limited sailings, and 

 other arrangements; and all agreements 

 thus approved by the board are exempt 

 from the Sherman antitrust law and its 

 amendments. 



Under the Shipping Board, there has 

 been organized the Emergency Fleet Cor- 

 poration with a capital stock of $50,000,- 

 000. This corporation has requisitioned all 

 the shipyards of the United States and all 

 the ships under construction. The ships 

 will be completed in accordance with the 

 directions of the Fleet Corporation. The 

 actual operation of the yards and the finish- 

 ing of the ships remain with the corpora- 

 tions and persons who previously had them 

 in charge, but the compensation which they 

 are to receive is upon the basis of a fair 

 profit, which is decided hy the Fleet Cor- 

 poration. 



The Fleet Corporation is also engaged on 

 a gigantic scale in the construction of addi- 

 tional ship-building plants and in the con- 

 struction of new ships. This work is 

 largely done not by. the Fleet Corporation 

 itself, but under contract. The Emergency 

 Fleet Corporation has announced that the 

 actual building program under contract 

 embraces more than 8,000,000 tons, dead 

 weight capacity. 



Chakles E. Van Hise 



University op Wisconsin 



(To be continued) 



THE NOMENCLATURE USED IN COL- 

 LOID CHEMISTRY. A PLEA FOR 

 REFORM 



Colloid chemistry is no longer considered 

 as a mere collection of mysterious substances 

 and " abnormal " reactions. It is an impor- 

 tant branch of chemical and physical science 

 possessing a fairly well established working 

 basis and is rapidly acquiring new students. 



It suffers, however, like all virgin sciences, 

 the affliction of superfluity of terms used to 

 describe essentially the same things, careless 

 and loose use of some expressions, and con- 

 fusion of nomenclature in general. This con- 

 dition results in a great handicap to new stu- 

 dents. It is very difficult for them to acquire 

 clear conceptions from their first readings of 

 the various works on the subject. 



It is time that this matter be taken in hand 

 by some committee of our Chemical Society 

 for the purpose of removing this needless 

 handicap and confusion by defining the va- 

 rious terms used in colloid science, elimina- 

 ting unnecessary ones and by standardization 

 of the terminology in general, just as was 

 done with the terminology of the proteins by 

 the biological chemists some years ago. 



The paragraphs which follow attempt to 

 point out some of the cases of malusage of 

 terms. 



No objection can be raised against the 

 word " colloid." It is distinctive, but the use 

 of the expression " colloidal solution " is to 

 be strongly condemned, since it is so evident 

 that substances in the colloidal condition are 

 not dissolved, in the strict sense of the term. 

 Colloidal particles are in a condition midway 

 between solution and mechanical suspension, 

 and they are held in this peculiar state of 

 dispersion by virtue of their surface energy, 

 electrical charge, their kinetic energy as 

 manifested by the Brownian movement, and 

 the adsorbed ions of electrolytes which are 

 essential to the stability of all colloids. 



The general term " dispersion," as sug- 

 gested by Wo. Ostwald, is to be preferred to 

 the special term " solution." E.g., 



" Mechanical suspen- 

 sions " are Coarse dispersions. 



