570 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 670 



outside of France and in the early litera- 

 ture was frequently written glycine. 

 When later the element itself was sepa- 

 rated by Wohler he used the term beryllium 

 for the first time and a few weeks after 

 glucinium appeared in the French press 

 due to Bussy's almost simultaneous dis- 

 covery. It is useless to go into the sub- 

 sequent usage of the term or why the "i" 

 was dropped and glucinum used for a time 

 in American practise. It is sufScient, I 

 think, to say that by far the majority of 

 chemists of the world prefer and use the 

 name beryllium in their conversation and 

 writings, and since neither priority nor 

 usage can be shown for glucinium it should 

 be dropped as rapidly as possible in the 

 interests of uniformity. I especially be- 

 lieve this to be true since there is no pros- 

 pect of its ever replacing the more popular 

 and, in my opinion, more justifiable beryl- 

 lium. 



Although the literature of inorganic 

 chemistry is quite generally overburdened 

 with compounds which have no actual 

 existence and which have obtained place 

 and been assigned formulas simply by the 

 analysis of solid phases obtained under 

 variable conditions and without other at- 

 tempt to prove their individuality, it is 

 doubtful if there is any branch of the field 

 that needs more careful revision than the 

 chemistry of beryllium. Its literature is 

 fuU of errors. Compound after compound 

 has been claimed which has no actual indi- 

 vidual existence, but whose place in litera- 

 ture and whose formula depend solely 

 upon analysis of mixed crystals, residues 

 of evaporation or indefinite gummy pre- 

 cipitates, without attempt to separate the 

 individuals present. Formerly this could 

 not always be done, but with the more re- 

 cent and simple applications of the phase 

 rule to these problems there is no excuse 

 for similar errors which, unfortunately, 

 still continue to creep into our journals. 



The metal beryllium itself has been but 



little studied, and for the main part simply 

 as a dark steel-gray powder obtained by 

 the reduction of its chloride by sodium or 

 potassium or as small hexagonal plates ob- 

 tained by the electrolysis of its double 

 fluorides in a manner quite similar to the 

 production of aluminum. Its melting 

 point, its solution tension and many others 

 of its important properties have never been 

 determined, and many diverse statements 

 are to be found in regard to it, although the 

 very careful researches of Lebeau can un- 

 doubtedly be fully relied upon so far as he 

 went into the subject. It is recorded, for 

 example, that it does and it does not com- 

 bine directly with hydrogen, sulphur, selen- 

 ium and phosphorus, that it is and it is 

 not reduced from its oxide by aluminum 

 and magnesium, that it has been produced 

 (even manufactured) by the electrolysis of 

 its bromide and that its bromide is not a 

 conductor of electricity. In each ease the 

 negative is probably true. For many years 

 its valency was, and, for that matter, still 

 is a matter of dispute. Even before it was 

 seen that the only vacant place for beryl- 

 lium in the periodic system was between 

 lithium and boron, there were strong argu- 

 ments for both its divalency and its trival- 

 ency on account of its close resemblance to 

 both zinc and aluminum in its action. 

 When Mendeleef finally pointed out its 

 proper place in his table the controversy 

 grew even more animated and most of the 

 researches on the element in the seventies 

 and eighties had the establishment of the 

 true valency as the main object. All the 

 early determinations of the specific heat 

 lead to the figure 13.6 as the atomic weight 

 and it was not until Nilson and Pettersson, 

 after conquering unusual difficulties in a 

 masterly research, finally determined the 

 vapor density of the chloride and estab- 

 lished its formula as BeClj that real light 

 was thrown on the problem. Shortly 

 afterward in 1886 Humpidge showed that 

 beryllium was abnormal as to its specific 



