906 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 494. 



oui" knowledge of some of the simplest 

 electrochemical phenomena, such as, for in- 

 stance, in the facts concerning the simul- 

 taneous deposition of two or more metals 

 from solution. While doing this the im- 

 pression grows strong upon us that electro- 

 chemistry has lost much because of a lack 

 of cooperation among electrochemical in- 

 vestigators, and because of the desultory, 

 haphazard manner in which their efforts 

 have been frequently applied. 



The lack of a coordinating, directing, 

 systematizing influence among electrochem- 

 ical workers has been the crying need of 

 the science, and it is just this influence, 

 above all things, which is furnished by our 

 electrochemical societies. The Bunsen So- 

 ciety in Germany, the Faraday Society in 

 England, our own society in America have 

 brought electroehemists together, making 

 them acquainted with each other's work, 

 and in particular with the need of experi- 

 mental work along neglected lines, and 

 have thus furnished the coordinating 

 agency until recently so deplorably lacking. 



Davy and Faraday laid broad the experi- 

 mental foundations of this science by the 

 electrolytic decomposition of many of our 

 most common chemical compounds. Bun- 

 sen supplemented this by attacking the 

 rarer metals. Kohlrauseh investigated 

 speciflc conductivities of almost numberless 

 solutions. Beetz and Lorenz fused salts; 

 Moissan the electrochemistry of high tem- 

 peratures ; Hittorf and Ostwald and Nernst 

 the mechanism of electrolysis of solutions, 

 while in between these monumental investi- 

 gations hundreds of others have contrib- 

 uted to the advance. But still if the army 

 of investigators, as regards numbers, had 

 been in reality an army as regards organ- 

 ization and systematically directed effort, 

 how much more valuable would its work 

 have been ! Is it not a fact that one of the 

 results of our semi-annual meetings is that 

 we learn and have impressed upon us the 



gaps in experimental electrochemistry, and 

 that we often, either deliberately or tacitly, 

 divide the work among us for systematic 

 investigation 1 



Let me indicate some of the many electro- 

 chemical subjects which need systematic 

 attack and orderly study. The electric 

 conductivity of some common salts is as 

 yet undetermined, not to mention most of 

 the rarer ones. Braun, Graetz and Poin- 

 caire did good work on the conductivity of 

 fused salts many years ago, but for every 

 salt they tested there are a dozen or a score 

 awaiting investigation. The results of the 

 electrolysis of solutions of different salts, 

 of different concentrations, at different 

 temperatures, with differing electrodes and 

 current densities, has been merely touched 

 here and there ; the great body of that in- 

 formation is ripe for harvest to whoever 

 can wield the sickle. The study of the 

 electrolysis of fused salts, or of solutions 

 of chemical compounds dissolved in fused 

 baths, is scarcely begun. One can go into 

 the laboratory any afternoon and start an 

 electrochemical study of a salt which has 

 never before been taken up, and there are 

 enough such to keep the laboratory busy 

 a long, long time. 



The use of accurately controlled electro- 

 deposition for the purpose of determining 

 the chemical equivalents of the metals is a 

 method which has not received the atten- 

 tion which it deserves. It is quite certain 

 that the atomic weights of many elements, 

 whose exact value is at present uncertain, 

 could be fixed satisfactorily in this manner. 

 The calorimetric investigation of electro- 

 lytic cells in operation, inaugurated by 

 Faure, is an attractive field wide open for 

 the experimenter, and from which much 

 valuable information could be drawn. Be- 

 sides these, the deposition of alloys, the 

 solution of alloys, the electrolysis of mixed 

 electrolytes, the function of intermediate 

 (bi-polar) electrodes, the exact modus oper- 



