June 10, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



893 



a basic salt, the high atomic weight i?"' = 236.3. 

 But I stated expressly, and I feel obliged to repeat 

 it, that these fractions show a great tendency to 

 form basic salts. Assuming these to be normal, 

 a higher atomic weight than the true one is ob- 

 tained. This is true especially in regard to the 

 oxalate. 



The splitting up of thorium into Th» and ThP 

 was, of course, not so sensational an event as the 

 announcement from America of the splitting up 

 of thorium into ' carolinium ' and ' berzelium.' 



BOHUSLAV BrAUNEB. 



Bohemian University, Prague, 

 April 18. 



Those who have read my work and heard 

 my recent paper delivered before the Wash- 

 ington, New York and North Carolina sec- 

 tions of the American Chemical Society do 

 not require further information regarding the 

 above. In view of the fact that many British 

 men of science are not familiar with the work 

 and may be misled, it has been deemed wise 

 to despatch the following to the editor of 

 Nature. 



Re Thorium. — The elementary nature of 

 thorium has been questioned by several work- 

 ers, namely, Chroustschoff in 1889 (J. russ. 

 phys. Ohem. Ges., 29, 206), Eutherford in 

 1899 (Phil. Mag., 49, 2, 1900), Crookes in 1900 

 (Proc. Roy. Sac, 66, 406) and in 1901 Brauner 

 (Proc. Ghem. 8oc., 17, 67) and Baskerville 

 working independently (Journ. Am. Ghem. 

 Soc, 23, 761). The methods employed were 

 different in each case. 



The undersigned lias made no claim of 

 priority as to the idea of the complexity of 

 thorium, but he distinctly claims to have ap- 

 plied novel methods and an old one, which . 

 demonstrate to the satisfaction of himself and 

 others familiar with the work, not only the 

 complexity of old thorium, but the existence 

 of two new elements to which the names of 

 carolinium and berzelium have properly been 

 given. The old method was used by Berzelius, 

 who died thirty years before the plaintiff, ac- 

 cording to his own statement (April 28, p. 

 606), began his work on the separation of the 

 rare earths. 



Scientific men will await the appearance of 

 the paper, which will be published shortly in 

 the Journal of the American Ghemical So- 



ciety, and see that all workers have received 

 full credit for their share in the solution of 

 the question. In the meantime, the letter 

 adverted to, carrying much that is true and a 

 distortion, which any one may verify by refer- 

 ence to the literature, to say the least is in 

 poor taste. 



For fear lest the old proverb, ' qui tacet con- 

 seniire videtur,' carry too much influence, the 

 above statement is reluctantly made. 



Chas. Baskerville. 



Univeesity of Nokth Carolina, U. S. A., 

 May 17, 1904. 



A REDDISH-BROWN SNOWFALL. 



To THE Editor of Science: An incident 

 which should, perhaps, be recorded is that of 

 a reddish-brown snowfall which occurred at 

 this place on February 2 last (1904). A 

 light snow was falling on that day and about 

 noon the character of the snow-fall changed 

 to a reddish-brown or light chocolate color. 

 This continued for half or three quarters of 

 an hour, after which the snow-fall of ordinary 

 appearance continued during the afternoon, the 

 colored snow appearing as a well-defined layer 

 between the white snow which fell before and 

 after it. An examination under the micro- 

 scope showed numerous irregular-shaped, semi- 

 transparent particles with an appearance sim- 

 ilar to feldspar. Nitric and muriatic acid 

 applied to them gave no apparent result. Ex- 

 amined microscopically during the snow-fall 

 it appeared that the particles were not carried 

 on the snow, but were embedded in the snow 

 crystals. Other ordinary contaminations 

 were present, but were plainly distinguishable 

 from the peculiar particles in the snow crys- 

 tals. The phenomenon was observed in two 

 or three near-by towns, but, so far as learned, 

 not outside this immediate vicinity. 



Edward Lindsey. 

 Waeben, Pa., 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 

 MENTAL EFFICIENCY AND HEALTH. 



In the address as president of the American 

 Society of Naturalists, read by Professor Cat- 

 tell at the annual dinner, January 1, 1903, and 

 printed in this journal, April 10, 1903, is in- 

 serted a table giving the grades for different 



