Septembek 20, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



355 



by treating steel witli nitric acid appear to 

 furnish the best primary standards. 



Professor W. D. Bancroft, of Newport, E- 

 I., spoke on ' Saturated Solutions and the 

 Mass Law.' The author showed that the 

 precipitation of salts from saturated aqueous 

 solutions by organic liquids and by other 

 salts can be expressed by the formula 



(X+A)-' y=c 

 and (X+A)" (y+B) =c, in which X is the 

 quantity of the salt in the saturated solu- 

 tion and y the quantity of the added liquid 

 or salt. A and B are calculated from the 

 experiments themselves and the formula 

 may be derived by an application of the 

 law of mass action. 



Professor F. P. Venable, of Chapel Hill, 

 N". C, discussed 'Eecent Views on the Peri- 

 odic System,' giving a very brief historical 

 review and referring more in detail to the 

 views of Preyer, Thomsen and Boisbau- 

 dran. 



Thomsen's table is the same as that of 

 Carnelley, the latter having stated that it 

 was originally Bayley's. Professor Ven- 

 able has given a table himself in the Jour- 

 nal of the American Chemical Society, but 

 disclaims any attempt to discuss the genesis 

 of the elements. The law is incomplete, 

 but establishes that the elements are not 

 independent bodies but are closely related 

 to each other. He also described a synop- 

 tical table of the elements by Professor L. 

 E.. Gibbs, of Charleston, S. C, pu.blished in 

 1875, which contained many of the features 

 of Mendeleef's system, though developed 

 without knowledge of that. It also antici- 

 pated much of the later work. 



FRIDAY AFTERNOON. 



T)v. H. N. Stokes, of Washington, gave an 

 account of the work which has been done 

 with argon and helium. 



Prof. E. W. Morley, of Cleveland, Ohio, 

 gave an account of his determinations of 

 the volumetric composition of water. The 



ratio obtained by Professor Morley some 

 years ago, while undoubtedly the same 

 which any other observer working with ap- 

 paratus of the same natu.re and dimensions 

 and with the same care, would obtain, was 

 incorrect because of some physical reason, 

 dependent on the measurement of gases in 

 tubes, but not clearly understood. By a 

 different method, the ratio has been deter- 

 mined with very great accuracy as being 

 2.00269. This value agrees closely with 

 that obtained by Scott in his later work, 

 and also fairly well with the result calcu- 

 lated by the formula of Van der Waals. 

 The densities of hydrogen and of oxygen 

 have also been determined by methods 

 which eliminate the effect of mercurial 

 vapor. The values are, for a latitude of 

 45°,- 0.089873 for hydrogen and 1.42900 for 

 oxygen. 



Prof. C. H. Herty, of Athens, Ga., spoke 

 of 'Double Salts and AlUed Compounds.' 

 Attention was called to the inaccuracy of 

 past work, the various lines of investigation 

 followed, and the theoretical views of the 

 constitution of these bodies which have been 

 advanced by Horstmann, Eemsen, Werner, 

 Carnegie and others. None of these seem 

 to be entirely satisfactory. Lines of work 

 were siiggested which may prove useful 

 in determining the constitution of these 

 bodies. 



Prof. W. A. Noyes, of Terre Haute, Ind., 

 read a paper on ' Camphoric Acid.' A new 

 and independent proof that cis-campholytic 

 acid is a A' compound has been obtained. 

 A study of hexahydro-xylyllic and some 

 of its derivatives has given quite conclusive 

 proof that the Armstrong- Wallach formula 

 for camphoric acid is incorrect. 



FRIDAY EVENING. 



Prof. p. C. Freer, of Ann Arbor, de- 

 scribed his recent work on ' Tetrinic Acid.' 

 This indicates that the correct foi-mula for 

 the acid is 



