358 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1132 



sity of St. Petersburg, and later, director of 

 the meteorological observatory there. His 

 meteorological work which was very compre- 

 hensive centered most, perhaps, on the rela- 

 tions between the temperatures of air, ground, 

 oceans and lakes. In 1904, Voeikov published 

 " Meteorologia," a handbook of 719 pages in 

 Russian, and at present the leading meteoro- 

 logical text in that language. As a geog- 

 rapher, he is noted particularly for his publi- 

 cations on the role of the Pacific Ocean in the 

 world's affairs, an article on the regeneration 

 of Eussia, and a French work " Le Turkestan 

 russe." 14 



Prince Bonis Borisovitch Galitzine died at 

 Petrograd, after a short illness, on May 4 

 (17), of this year, at the age of 54 years. For 

 the past three years he was director of the 

 meteorological service of the Russian Empire. 

 He is best known for his distinguished work 

 in seismology. 15 



Sir "William Eamsay, " the father of the 

 new physical chemistry," and England's fore- 

 most chemist, died July 24, 1916. His contri- 

 bution to meteorology, conjointly with Lord 

 Eayleigh, was the discovery of the four noble 

 atmospheric gases: argon, neon, krypton and 

 xenon. Nitrogen derived from air was found 

 to be denser than that obtained from other 

 sources. By heating atmospheric nitrogen re- 

 peatedly with metallic magnesium Eamsay ob- 

 tained a denser and denser gas which proved 

 to be quite different from nitrogen. At the 

 same time, Lord Eayleigh was able to separate 

 nitrogen from possible impurities by repeating 

 with modern apparatus an experiment devised 

 by Cavendish. These two investigators con- 

 tinuing jointly discovered argon, first of a new 

 class of elements. Incidental experimenting 

 with liquid air led to the discovery of three 

 other elements of this same type — neon, kryp- 

 ton and xenon. 16 



14 See Monthly Weather Rev., May, 1916, pp. 

 288-289. 



15 See Nature, London, Vol. XCVIL, 1916, p. 

 424. 



is Scientific American, August 5, 1916, p. 117. 



Early this year Dr. Th. Hesselberg became 

 director of L'Institut meteorologique de Nor- 

 vege, Kristiania. 



German meteorological magazines dated 

 February, 1915, seem to have been the last 

 ones received in this country. 



Charles F. Brooks 



Yale University 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



THE BROMINE CONTENT OF PUGET SOUND 

 NEREOCYSTIS (GIANT KELP) 



It seems strange indeed that scarcely any 

 mention is made in the American technical 

 literature of the presence of bromine in the 

 seaweeds of the Pacific coast, especially those 

 seaweeds which have been termed "kelp." 

 Available analytical data on the quantities of 

 bromine from the above source is negligible. 



The writer considers this to be due to one or 

 more of several possible reasons. Perhaps, if 

 bromine has been previously detected, it was 

 not considered to be present in quantities large 

 enough to be of importance. The content of 

 bromine must vary considerably in amount in 

 the various varieties and species of seaweeds. 

 Either it does not occur in certain species or 

 varieties, or the same variety from different 

 localities contains it in widely different propor- 

 tions. Again, the difficulty met with in deter- 

 mining bromine quantitatively in the presence 

 of an excess of the other haloid salts is a con- 

 tending factor in the production of analytical 

 data upon this subject. 



A personal experience, which attracted my 

 attention to the bromine content of seaweed, 

 may prove interesting at this point. Some 

 two years ago, while teaching chemistry in the 

 College of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Wash., it 

 was my privilege to often walk along the beach 

 at The Narrows, especially during the time of 

 low tide. The Narrows is situated about four 

 miles west of the city of Tacoma, and borders 

 the mainland on the west and a strip of beach, 

 known as Day Island, on the east. The chan- 

 nel of the sound is less than a half-mile wide 



