88 
to be thought,’’ ete., ete. (cf. Marlatt, l.c., p. 
837). 
T. D. A. COCKERELL. 
N. M. AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 
POT-HOLE Vs. REMOLINO. 
To THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: In your issue 
of July 14th you publish a communica- 
tion from Mr. Oscar H. Hershey, in which 
he advocates the substitution of the Spanish 
word ‘remolino’ for the term ‘pot-hole,’ as 
applied to rounded cavities formed by rivers in 
their rock-beds. 
The term pot-hole may not be elegant, but it 
certainly expresses the object to which it is 
applied more correctly than would the Spanish 
word he seeks to adopt in its place. The defi- 
nition of ‘remolino ’ is a whirlpool, or whirl- 
wind; it is also applied to a turbulent or disor- 
derly mob of people. 
While a whirlpool may be the cause of a 
‘pothole,’ it would be improper to substitute 
the cause for the effect. 
The fact that the word remolino is not prop- 
erly applied in the Republic of Colombia, per- 
haps only coloquially, is no justification for the 
introduction of an incorrect term into American 
scientific nomenclature. 
1Mg US) Jabavipyons 
WASHINGTON, D. C., July 15, 1899. 
NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 
THE pupils and former colleagues of Professor 
Joly, of the Ecole Normale of Paris, are continu- 
ing with good results the researches of Joly on 
platinum groups of metals. Brizard, of the 
Ecole Normale, has continued the study of the 
osmiamates begun by Joly. These compounds 
were discovered by Fritzsche and Struve half a 
century ago, being formed by the action of am- 
monia and caustic potash on osmium tetroxid. 
The formula assigned was K,Os,N,0;. Joly 
was led to suspect that the compound contained 
the NO group, analogous to his nitroso com- 
pounds of ruthenium, and partial analyses and 
its decomposition products pointed in the same 
direction. Brizard has now confirmed this by 
complete analyses of the potassium, ammonium 
and silver salts, and the formula proposed by 
Joly KOsNO; is proven correct. The osmiamates 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S: Vou. X: No, 238: 
are thus salts of the anhydrid of a nitroso acid 
OsNO(OH),;, which corresponds to a hydroxid of 
ruthenium RuNO(OH),; discovered by Joly. 
In the same number of the Bulletin Soc. Chim. 
is a paper by Professor Vézes, of Bordeaux, con- 
tinuing his work on the oxalates of the plati- 
num metals. This paper takes up the oxalates 
of palladium. These may be formed directly by 
the action of potassium oxalate on potassium 
chlorpalladite in neutral solution, or by the ac- 
tion of oxalic acid on potassium palladouitrite. 
Unlike the case with platinum, the same salt is 
obtained in both cases, a potassium pallado- 
oxalate of formula Pd (Ox),K,3H,O. This salt 
is easily converted back into the chlorpalladite 
by hydrochloric acid, and into the palladonitrite 
by potassium nitrite in neutral solution. Pro- 
fessor Loiseleur, of Libourne, has succeeded in | 
preparing the free pallado-oxalic acid. It thus 
appears, as with platinum, a very close rela- 
tion subsists between K,PdCl,, K,Pd(NO,), and 
K,PdOx,, and also that the pallado-oxalates are 
not double salts merely, but ‘complex’ salts 
and derivatives of a ‘complex’ pallado-oxalic 
acid. 
PROFESSOR VWZES has also contributed to the 
Zeitschrift fir anorganische Chemie a short note 
on the volatilization of osmium in a stream of 
oxygen. The paper was occasioned by an 
article by Sule on the same subject, showing 
that osmium is volatile at ordinary tempera- 
tures. Vézes calls attention to the fact that 
Deville and Debray had long ago noticed this 
fact, which was further studied by Joly and 
himself. The volatility of osmium depends not 
only on the fineness of its division, but also 
upon the method of its preparation, some forms 
being volatilized appreciably at quite low tem- 
peratures. 
THE so-called ‘metallic’ variety of phos- 
phorus is shown by D. L. Chapman, in the 
Proceedings of the Chemical Society (London) to be 
identical with red phosphorus, their appear- 
ance under the microscope being similar. The 
alleged higher vapor tension of some varieties 
of red phosphorus is merely due to impurity. 
The vapors from red and from ordinary phos- 
phorus are identical, and at the temperatures of 
boiling mercury and of boiling sulfur show a 
