444 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 481. 



' aibimiinoid ammonia' process by inex- 

 perienced chemists. Men with little or no 

 training posed and advertised themselves 

 as expert water analysts. AVhat followed 

 can easily be imagined. The public nat- 

 urally became skeptical, and learned to dis- 

 credit not only the work of these pseudo- 

 chemists, but also the results of the experts. 

 It was not an uncommon thing, as late as 

 1895, for samples of water to be sent to 

 foiir or five different analysts in order to 

 see how widely they differed in their opin- 

 ions of the same sample. Of course, the 

 fault lay largely with the analysts who as- 

 sumed that their laboratory tests were all- 

 sufficient. 



Great good was accomplished along this 

 line by the Massachusetts Legislature in 

 1886, resulting in a law entitled 'An Act to 

 Protect the Purity of Inland Waters.' 

 This organization included not only a 

 chemical laboratory, but an engineering, 

 biological and bacteriological staff as well, 

 and the new idea of control of the water- 

 sheds and water supplies came to the front 

 in order that selfishness of mimicipal dis- 

 posal might be checked out of regard for 

 the general good. This idea has been con- 

 tintied in the various state and municipal 

 laboratories ever since. 



At the present time the field of contro- 

 versy has been somewhat shifted from or- 

 ganic matter to organisms whose pernicious 

 activities are supposed to give rise to the 

 most serious dangers. 



A Study of the Nitrogenous Constituents 



of Meats: H. S. Grindlet, University of 



Illinois, Urbana, 111. 



Object. — To increase by experimental 

 study the present very limited knowledge 

 of the proteids of flesh, in the condition in 

 wliich they exist in meat as used for food. 



Method. — Two samples of lean, raw beef 

 flesh and one sample of cooked beef flesh 

 Avere extracted successively with the follow- 



ing reagents: Cold water, 10 per cent.; 

 sodium chloride solution, .15 per cent. ; 

 hydrochloric acid solution, .15 per cent; 

 potassium hydroxide solution, and lastly 

 hot water. The several forms of proteid 

 and non-pi'oteid nitrogen in each of these 

 extracts were determined. 



Results.— The detailed results are given 

 in thirteen tables. 



Conclusions.— 1. Cooked meat is much 

 less soluble in the above solvents than raw 

 meat. 



. 2. The acidity of a solution of flesh in- 

 creases upon the coagulation of its proteids. 



3. Cold water extracted 3.06 per cent, 

 nitrogenous matter from raw meats and 

 only .27 per cent, from boiled meat. 



4. A 10 per cent, solution of sodium 

 chloride extracted from raw meats 6.10 per 

 cent, of proteid matter and only .5 per 

 cent, from boiled meat. 



5. A .15 per cent, solution of hydro- 

 chloric acid dissolved from raw meat 2.28 

 per cent, proteid and from boiled meat 

 2.30 per cent. 



6. A .15 per cent, solution of potassium 

 hydroxide extracted from raw meats 2.88 

 per cent., and from boiled meat 4.84 per 

 cent, of proteid. 



7. Hot water removed from raw meats 

 .49 per cent, and from boiled meats 6.24 

 per cent, proteid matter. 



8. Of the total proteid existing in the 

 original raw meats 95.22 per cent, was dis- 

 solved by extracting successively with the 

 above-named reagents, while only 50.59 per 

 cent, of the total proteid of the boiled meat 

 was thus made soluble. 



Some Double Salts of Lead: John White, 

 Rose Polytechnic, Terre Haute, Ind. 

 In 1863 the observation was made by 

 Carius {Liehig's Ann., 125, 87) that lead 

 acetate is acted upon by alkyl haloids when 

 heated with them in a sealed tube, using 

 glacial acetic acid as the solvent, and that 



