February 16, 1894. 
valuable series of papers on thé widespread occurrence of 
barium and strontium in the silicate rocks, with methods 
for the determination of these elements in small amounts. 
Mr. Hillebrand also deplored the laxity existing in rock 
analysis and brought forward a strong appeal for greater 
completeness inthefuture. The papers are of extreme 
interest and hardly permit of abstract but can be found in 
full in the February Journal of the Chemical Society. 
THE EXAMINATION OF BEESWAX. 
Mr. Lyman F. KesLer has recently published the results 
of an investigation of commercial beeswax, his general 
conclusions being as follows: He finds the beeswax upon 
- the market to be adulterated to the extent of 50 per cent, 
while in the English markets this adulteration may even 
reach 66 per cent. The melting point varies from 62°— 
74°C. It is raised by adding carnaiiba wax, stearic acid, 
certain mineral waxes and paraffin, and is lowered by 
China wax, Japan wax, cacao butter, resin, tallow, sper- 
maceti, vegetable wax, etc. On the other hand the melt- 
ing point is apparently unaltered when suint wax and 
certain of the mineral waxes areused. Thespecific gravity 
of the pure wax varies from 0.960 to 0.973, and this appears 
to be greatly influenced only by resin, carnaitiba wax and 
certain mineral waxes, which raise it, and by paraffin, 
which lowers it. The ‘‘acid number” ranges from 19-21 
mg. of potash per gramme of beeswax. Stearic acid resin 
and suint wax increase, while carnatiba wax, mineral wax, 
cacao butter, paraffin and spermaceti decrease the acid 
number. The ‘‘ ethernumber” varies from 73-76 mg. 
of potash per gramme of beeswax and is increased by 
China wax, Japan wax, cacao butter, tallow and vegetable 
wax. It is unaffected by by addition of carnaiiba wax but 
is lowered by mineral wax, paraffin, resin, stearic acid, 
etc. It must be noted in this connection that wax bleached 
by certain chemical agents may have on either number as 
high as 84 and yet bepure. The percentage of iodine 
varies from 8-11, but here also certain bleaching agents, 
such as chlorine, destroy the value of this test. Paraffin, 
mineral wax and stearic acid lower the percentage, while 
cacao butter, resin, suint wax and tallow increase it. The 
volume of hydrogen (53-57.5cc) evolved from one 
gramme of beeswax and the percentage (12.5-14.5 per 
cent) of hydrocarbons evidently are the most reliable data 
securable, the former being vitiated by all adulterants ex- 
cepting tallow, and the latter by all except suint wax. 
The author gives a resumé of the best methods employed 
with many references to the literature. 
BUTTER NOSTRUMS. 
VARIOUS nostrums for increasing the yield of butter have 
long been more or lesssecretly upon the market, and not- 
withstanding their frequent exposure, they no doubt meet 
with considerable sale. Professor H. W. Wiley has again 
called attention to these frauds in Farmers’ Bulletin No. 12, 
United States Department of Agriculture. It is claimed 
that from one pound of butter, one quart of milk and a little 
of the magic butter compound, two pounds of butter can 
be made! Analysis shows this compound to consist of com- 
mon salt, coloring matter anda little pepsin or rennet. 
Such a mixture churned with the butter and milk merely 
coagulates the latter and allows of its incorporation, 
together with considerable water, into the resulting 
““butter’’ mass. Such outrageous adulteration can be 
easily detected by melting asample in atest tube and 
comparing with a similar sample of genuine butter, the 
latter showing the fat in a clear limpid mass with only a 
small amount of water and a little curd, while with the 
former almost half of the whole volume will bea mixture of 
water, curd, and foreign substance. These compounds 
are retailed at from $2.00 to $2.50 a box of about two 
ounces, 
SCIENCE. 9! 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
¥*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name is 
in all cases required as a proof of good faith. 
On request in advance, one hundred copies of the number containing his communi- 
cation will be furnished free to any correspondent. 
_ The Editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the 
journal. 
Comment on ‘‘A New Thermo-Electric Phenomenon.”’ 
AwN article has recently appeared in Sczence,’ entitled 
‘CA New Thermo-electric Phenomenon.” It is from the 
pen of W. Huey Steele, and has been copied and 
abstracted in several journals. Previous to seeing Mr. 
Steele’s article, but not previous to its writing, I had 
made a few rough experiments along the same lines and 
had looked up the subject, historically, to see what had 
been already done. . 
From what I have been able to find out, in the course 
of my reading, it seems to me that Mr. Steele’s phe- 
nomenon is not ‘‘new’”’ at all, but is, perhaps, a slightly 
different phase of an old phenomenon first discovered by 
Becquerel in 1829.° Becquerel found that in a platinum 
wire, strained by a spiral and heated at one side of 
the strained portion, there is an electric current set 
up, and he thought that this was due to a difference in 
the propagation or movement of the heat to right and 
left of the heated portion. However, Magnus and 
Matteucci have shown that in a homogeneous metal the 
differences of temperature and of section are not sufficient 
to produce a current, and Becquerel’s phenomenon should 
be attributed to a difference in the molecular state. 
In addition, Sir William Thomson* has shown that 
thermo-electric currents were set up between the strained 
and unstrained portions of a single metal constituting a 
circuit; the effects in copper and iron being opposite, 
and the residual effect in each case being the reverse of 
the effect when the metals are temporarily strained. He 
also found the relations between hammered and un- 
hammered iron and between brittle and soft iron. 
To my mind these experiments are almost identical 
with those of Mr. Steele; practically no wire can be 
obtained that has not been through its own history of 
various strains. (The process of wire-drawing leaves the 
metal in a permanent state of elongation, and the residual 
thermo-electric effect, in that case, is the reverse of the 
effect which is induced by the force applied during the 
wire drawing.) As for the metals which he completely 
melted, I think there can be no doubt (from the very fact 
that ‘‘ the effects are not always steady; in fact, they very 
seldom keep steady” and the @recton of the currents keep 
shifting) that the melted metal was continually undergoing 
strains brought abo: t by currents and strata of the metal 
shearing past one another, or, in other words, by a differ- 
ence in the molecular state at different times. In addition 
there is probably, in the case of the melted metals, a 
large effect due to the thermo-electric action between the 
melted and solid metal that leads to the galvanometer, 
those at the opposite ends of the ‘‘clay tubes” being in 
different and continually changing molecular relations. 
Becquerel must have obtained a considerable E. M. F. 
when he heated his platinum wire fo a white heat and 
strongly affected a galvanometer of 1829. Krom these 
considerations I donot think that Mr. Steele’s isa ‘‘new” 
phenomenon, and I think that everybody that reads his 
article and compares it with those of Becquerel and 
Thomson (which are far too extensive to even outline in 
this note) will agree with me. 
In the opening lines of his paper Mr. Steele says that 
it has been ‘‘ generally known that electric currents may 
be produced by heating a single metal, if there be any 
'Nov. 10, 1893. 
2Becquerel’s © Traité d’Elec. et Mag.,”’ Vol. I., p. 155. 
$Phil. Trans., 1856, p. 711 et seq, 
