708 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 644 



'Urogenital Organs of North American 

 Lizards,' by Barney Brooks, professor of 

 chemistry in Coronal Institute. 



' The Indebtedness of the German Language 

 to the Latin,' by Dr. Sylvester Primer, pro- 

 fessor of Germanic languages in the Univer- 

 sity of Texas. 



The volume concludes with the proceedings 

 of the academy for 1905. 



Fredeeio W. Simonds, 



Secretary 

 Univeesitt of Texas, 

 April 2, 1907 



THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The lY3d regular meeting of the Washing- 

 ton Section of the American Chemical So- 

 ciety was held at the Cosmos Club, March 14, 

 190Y. 



The question of a sanitary committee was 

 settled by authorizing the president to in- 

 struct the committee on communications (0. 

 Schreiner, chairman) " to make arrangements 

 for si)ecial meetings of the society, or joint 

 meetings with other organizations where 

 lectures and reports may be presented on 

 general or special phases of sanitation, in 

 order that the society may be kept informed 

 on such matters, and suitable action taken." 



W. L. Dubois read a paper on ' Lactose and 

 Butter Fat in Milk Chocolate' in which he 

 showed that lactose could be accurately esti- 

 mated by polarizing the solution of sugar at 

 86° after inversion, and butter-fat could be 

 approximately determined by the Reichert- 

 Meissl number of the extracted fat. Dr. A. 

 Seidell presented a paper on the 'Determina- 

 tion of Acetanilid in Headache Powders.' The 

 method suggested was based upon the reaction 

 of bromine with anilin to form anilin tri- 

 bromide. The sample containing acetanilid is 

 dissolved in dilute hydrochloric acid and the 

 solution boiled. Anilin hydrochloride thus 

 formed is titrated directly with a standard 

 solution of potassium bromate. The free 

 bromine colors the solution yellow at the end 

 of the reaction. W. T. Schaller presented a 

 paper on ' The Chemical Composition of 

 Molybdic Ocher ' in which it was shown that 

 the natural molybdic ocher is a hydrous ferric 



molybdate Yefi^ 3MoO„ YjE^O, and that the 

 existence of molybdenum trioxide MoO, haa 

 not been demonstrated. 



On April 1, Professor A. Frank, Jr., of 

 Germany, gaye an address before the society 

 at the lecture haU of the George Washington 

 University on ' The Utilization of Atmospheric 

 Nitrogen in the Production of Calcium 

 Cyanamid.' The speaker described the grad- 

 ual steps which had been taken by various in- 

 vestigators during the past century to bring 

 about the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, 

 and told of the successful accomplishment of 

 this problem by his father working in col- 

 laboration with Dr. Caro. The successful 

 issue of this task was made possible only after 

 Professor Moissan had shown the practica- 

 bility of manufacturing calcium carbide com- 

 mercially, and after the introduction of the 

 dynamo and electric oven by Siemens and 

 Halske. The process consists essentially in 

 passing a current of air freed from oxygen 

 through calcium carbide heated in an electric 

 oven, calcium cyanamid or lime-nitrogen be- 

 ing thus produced. The speaker also touched 

 upon the fertilizing experiments carried on 

 in Europe to show the value of cyanamid as a 

 fertilizer. Other products are also produced, 

 some being used in the manufacture of gun 

 powder. Specimens of the various products 

 were exhibited. J. A. Le Clero, 



Secretary 



Bureau or Chemistet, 

 Washington, D. C. 



DISCUSSION AND OOBBESPONDENOB 



THE FIRST SPECIES RULE AS IT AFFECTS GENERA 



OP NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS 



In my consideration of the application of 

 the ' first species rule ' in fixing the types of 

 the genera of North American birds' I stated 

 that fourteen changes in the genera of the 

 A.O.U. Check List would result, while the 

 types of several genera would be shifted to 

 congeneric species. Dr. J. A. Allen has 

 stated' that my statistics 'greatly under- 

 estimate the number of changes ' and re- 



' Science, XXIV., p. 262, November 2, 1906. 

 ' Science, XXIV., p. 778, December 14, 1906. 



