994 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 416. 



The total number of Americans who have 

 occupied tables at the Naples Station, in- 

 cluding the appointments to the end of the 

 year, is eighty-one. If we omit the twelve 

 names of those who occupied tables between 

 'SI and '91, we find that sixty-nine American 

 investigators have worked in Naples during 

 the last eleven years. The international char- 

 acter of the work done in Naples is one of 

 the greatest advantages to be derived from a 

 s.cijourn at the Station. Here are to be seen 

 the newest methods, and to be heard the 

 latest points of view of some of the most ad- 

 vanced men from Germany, Italy, Russia, 

 Austro-Hungary, Belgium, England, etc. This 

 alone is an advantage, which we Americans, 

 isolated as we are by distance from the older 

 centers of investigation, can scarcely afford 

 to forego. Let us hope, therefore, that 

 America will not be niggardly in maintaining 

 at least three tables as she does at present, and 

 that in the near future their number may be 

 added to, since even now they are inadequate 

 to fill the demand. 



Our national representation at the Naples 

 Station can not be better shovm than by an 

 examination of the names of those American 

 zoologists, botanists and physiologists who 

 have worked in Naples. T. H. Morgan. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 



THE TELLURIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS. 



A PAPER on the above subject was read by 

 William Ackroyd at the Belfast meeting of 

 the British Association, in demonstration -of 

 the thesis that the telluric distribution of the 

 elements is inversely in proportion to their 

 atomic weights. The question of the relative 

 quantity of the elements in that portion of 

 the earth which is known to us is quite fully 

 dealt with by Professor Frank W. Clarke in 

 Bulletin 148 of the U. S. Geological Survey. 

 Here the abundance of the elements is de- 

 termined from large groups of analyses of 

 rocks and other telluric products, but only 

 twenty-one elements are considered. Ackroyd 

 has adopted the commercial idea of price as 

 a measure of plenty or rarity, a procedure 

 which would seem to be of rather doubtful 

 expediency. In some cases the price of the 



element itself is used; in other cases, espe- 

 cially where there is difficulty in obtaining 

 the elementary form, some compound is con- 

 sidered. The latter is the case, for example, 

 in the calcium group where the carbonates are 

 used, and in the arsenic group where the 

 basis is the oxid. , Measured in this way, it 

 appears generally that in each group the 

 abundance of each element as measured by 

 its commercial price is inversely proportional 

 to its atomic weight. There are, however, a 

 number of exceptions, where the element of 

 highest atomic weight is more abundant than 

 its immediate predecessor, as with barium, 

 which appears to be more abundant than 

 strontium; the same is true of mercury, lead, 

 thallium, osmium, platinum, iridium and 

 thorium. The halogens obey the general 

 proposition, but their abundance is measured 

 by their relative quantity in sea water. The 

 conclusion is drawn that in the formation of 

 the atoms from primordial matter less and 

 less atoms of highest atomic mass were 

 evolved, and that the universe became per- 

 vaded by the greatest quantity of those atoms 

 which have the lowest masses. It is, in gen- 

 eral, true that the most abundant elements 

 are those of relatively low atomic weight, but 

 Ackroyd's line of reasoning presents too many 

 exceptions to bear out his conclusions. 



THE NATURE OF ALLOYS. 



The final report of the Committee of the 

 British Association on this subject was pre- 

 sented at the Belfast meeting. The com- 

 mittee consisted of Messrs. Neville, Heycock 

 and Grifiiths, and the report covers a com- 

 plete study of the copper-tin alloys. At least 

 three solid solutions are formed during the 

 solidification of these alloys. If . the alloys 

 have been cooled with sufficient slowness, the 

 foUowing conditions exist at ordinary tem- 

 perature : 



to 9 per cent. tin. — A uniform solid solu- 

 tion of copper containing tin, or, more prob- 

 ably, containing a compound in solution. 



9 per cent, to 25.5 per cent. tin. — A com- 

 plex of large crystals of the above solid solu- 

 tion in a minute eutectic of the same solid 

 solution and Cu.Sn. 



