324 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 583. 



thus absolutely debarring any idea of dis- 

 sociation in any sense whatever. 



The paper concludes with a careful dis- 

 cussion and tabulation of the most probable 

 values of the thermochemieal constants of 

 bases and acid radicals, on the arbitrary 

 basis of hydrogen gas being zero. 



The paper should be published in the 

 Journal of the society. 



On the Specific Inductive Capacity of 

 Solutions of the Oleates of the Heavy 

 Metals: Louis Kahlenberg. 



The Separation of Solutes from Solvents 

 by Absorbing Media: P. K. Cameron 

 and J. M. Bell. 



Examples of the separation of organic 

 solutes (dyes) from water or from one 

 another, their separation from inorganic 

 substances, and the selective absorption of 

 ionized products were given. The absorb- 

 ing media principally used were blotting 

 pape'rs, cotton and soils. A specially in- 

 teresting case on account of its wide prac- 

 tical significance, was the absorption of 

 the base from blue litmus test papers or 

 solutions, leaving the residue apparently 

 acid. An important practical feature of 

 such separations is the relative rates at 

 which solutes move capillarily through the 

 absorbing media. It was found that such 

 movements followed an empirical law, 

 j/» :_-= kt, where y represents the distance 

 through which the movement has taken 

 place, t the time of movement and n and k 

 constants depending on the nature of the 

 substances used, although n approximated 

 2.3 in most of the cases to which the 

 formula has so far been applied. While 

 this formula appears to hold remarkably 

 well when neither the distance nor time is 

 large, it ceases to hold whenever one of the 

 variables assumes any considerable magni- 

 tude as in the eases so far recorded in the 

 literature. For instance, the movement of 

 water in soils has generally been measured 



at intervals of many hours or days, and 

 through secondary gravitational or possibly 

 other effects this formula ceases to hold. 

 For the study of separations, however, the 

 formula gives promise of much usefulness. 



Molecular Absorption: F. K. Cameron and 

 B. E. Livingston. (By title.) 



The Absorption of Potassium by Soils: 

 Oswald Schreiner and G. H. Failyer. 

 The absorption of potassium by soils has 

 been studied in a manner identical with 

 that of the phosphate. As far as investi- 

 gated the potassium absorption can be rep- 

 resented by the equation 



where K is a constant, A the maximum 

 amount of potassium the soil can absorb 

 under the conditions of the experiment, 

 and y the amount it has absorbed when the 

 volume V of potassium solution has passed 

 through the soil. The removal by water 

 of tibie absorbed potassium is rapid at first, 

 but the concentration of the percolates soon 

 reaches a constant value, although only a 

 fractional amount of the absorbed potas- 

 sium has been removed. As far as the 

 observations have been made the solutions 

 obtained by percolating a solution of potas- 

 sium chloride through the soil have always 

 been acid. 



The Absorption of Phosphate by Soils: 

 Osw^ALD Schreiner and G. H. Failyer. 

 In view of the importance of the sub- 

 ject to a proper understanding of the 

 chemistry of the soil and of soil solutions, 

 a systematic study of the behavior of sev- 

 eral soil types toward different phosphates 

 was made. The phosphate solution was 

 percolated through the soil at a slow and 

 constant rate in an apparatus especially 

 designed for this purpose. The separate 

 fractions were then analyzed for phosphate 

 and thus the amount absorbed by the soil 



