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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 



C. C. Morris, Ohio State University; Mr. H. S. 

 Newcomer, University of Wisconsin; Professor A. 



D. Pitcher, University of Kansas; Professor 

 George Rutledge, Georgia School of Technology. 

 Four applications for membership were received. 

 The official list of nominations of officers for the 

 coming year was prepared in anticipation of the 

 annual election in December. 



The society is preparing to publish the Col- 

 loquium lectures delivered at the summer meeting 

 at Princeton in 1909 by Professors Bliss and 

 Kasner. It has also arranged to republish the 

 Evanston Colloquium lectures of Professor Felix 

 Klein, the original edition of 1894 being out of 

 print. 



The following papers were read at the October 

 meeting : 



G. A. Miller : " The group generated by two 

 conjoints." 



O. E. Glenn : " The conditions that a p-ary 

 form of order m- be a perfect mth power." 



Edward Kasner : " A second converse of the 

 theorem of Thomson and Tait." 



L. L. Silverman: "Generalized definitions of 

 the sum of convergent series." 



H. H. Mitchell : " Note concerning a collinea- 

 tion group in n variables." 



R. D. Carmichael: "Mixed equations and their 

 analytic solutions" (preliminary communication). 



G. A. Miller : " The groups generated by two 

 conjoints." 



The Southwestern Section of the society meets 

 at tne University of Nebraska on November 26. 

 The annual meeting of the society will be held at 

 Columbia University on December 28-29. The 

 Chicago Section will hold its winter meeting at 

 Minneapolis on December 29-30. 



F. N. Cole, 

 Secretary 



THE CHEMICAL SOCIETT OF WASHINGTON 



The 200th meeting of the society Was held at 

 the Public Library, October 13, 1910, at 8 p.m. 

 President Failyer called the meeting to order, the 

 attendance being 52. A committee was appointed 

 to take suitable action on the death of Dr. W. H. 

 Seaman, a past president and the first treasurer 

 of the society. The following papers were then 

 read: " The Mechanism of a Peroxidase Reaction," 

 by H. H. Bunzell : " Biophotogenesis," by F. Alex. 

 McDermott. 



In Dr. Bunzell's paper experimental evidence 

 was given that the oxidation of pyrogallol by 

 hydrogen peroxide in the presence of oxidizing 



enzymes goes on in two stages. The first step in 

 the oxidation is the conversion of the pyrogallol 

 into a soluble red compound; the second stage is 

 the transformation of the latter into the insoluble 

 purpurogallin. The first step is brought about 

 by hydrogen peroxide in the absence of oxidase. 

 It may be carried out also by atmospheric oxygen 

 alone, in which case the oxidation goes on very 

 much more slowly than if hydrogen peroxide is 

 used. The passage of air will accelerate the 

 action of the hydrogen peroxide on the pyrogallol. 

 The second step is brought about by oxidase alone 

 in the absence of peroxide. 



Mr. McDermott's paper was essentially a review 

 of the more salient known facts and theories 

 regarding the production of light by living organ- 

 isms, with especial reference to some recent work, 

 now in press, of Professor Joseph H. Kastle, of 

 the University of Virginia, with the author, on 

 the local firefiy, Photinus pyralis L. 



Most chemical and physical agents produce 

 light-emission by this insect; a few inhibit it. 

 The light appears to be the result of an oxidation 

 in the presence of water; what substance is oxi- 

 dized is not known. Luminous insects frequently 

 contain a substance giving fluorescent solutions. 

 J. A. Le Clekc 



Secretary 



the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 

 NOETHEASTEEN SECTION 



The ninety-ninth regular meeting of the section 

 was held at the Twentieth Century Club, Boston, 

 on October 21. 



Dr. Latham Clarke, of Harvard University, ad- 

 dressed the section upon " Hydrocarbons of the 

 Formula CsH,s." He described in detail a typical 

 method of preparation for one of the series and 

 then pointed out some striking relations between 

 the boiling points and structures of many of this 

 series, which had been made for the first time in 

 this research. 



Professor Arthur W. Ewell, of the Worcester 

 Polytechnic Institute, addressed the section upon 

 " Artificial Optical Activity." The speaker de- 

 scribed his method of causing the rotation of 

 polarized light by passing it through cylinders of 

 gelatine which had become somewhat distorted by 

 twisting. He stated what variables determined 

 the value of the rotation and offered the sugges- 

 tion of molecular distortion as a possible cause of 

 optical activity of solutions. 



K. L. Maek, 



