522 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 199. 



of chemistry. While there were many very 

 interesting papers, perhaps the one that 

 aroused most comment, favorable and con- 

 servative, was that of Dr. Chas. F. Brush 

 ' On a New Gas in the Air — Etherion.'* 



This gas, which is found absorbed by 

 many substances, is a constituent of the 

 atmosphere. Phosphorus pentoxide when 

 cold absorbs it, but gives it up on heating. 

 A year anda-half ago Dr. Brush, while look- 

 ing for occluded hydrogen in glass, found 

 not only that substance, but this new gas. 

 The presence of the new gas made itself 

 known by its enormous heat conductivity 

 at low pressures. In a paper presented 

 before Section B last year Mr. Brush gave 

 the results of his experiments on the heat 

 conductivity of various gases at low pres- 

 sure. Hydrogen has been regarded the best 

 gaseous conductor of heat. The occluded 

 gas in powdered glass contained some hy- 

 drogen, but showed a greater heat con- 

 ductivity. In repeated trials at purifying 

 the gas by fractional diffusion, each time an 

 increase of conductivity was observed until 

 a gas was obtained with a heat conductivity 

 one hundred times that of hydrogen. The 

 experiments were not reported as continued 

 to a point when the conductivity was the 

 same before and after diffusion, so the im- 

 purity of the substance was readily acknowl- 

 edged. 



A table of figures was exhibited, showing 

 the molecular weight, density, specific heat; 

 relative mean molecular velocity and heat 

 conductivity of the gases, whose heat-con- 

 ducting curves appeared in a chart ; and 

 attention was directed to the evident close 

 relationship between heat conductivity and 

 molecular velocity of the gases. 



From this relationship some other prop- 

 erties of the new gas were deduced. Taking 

 the heat conductivity of the new gas at a 

 hundred times that of hydrogen— a very 



*This paper was printed in the last number (page 

 485) of Science. — Ed. Science. 



conservative estimate — its mean molecular 

 velocity at freezing temperature was calcu- 

 lated to be moi-e than a hundred miles per 

 second, and its density only a thousandth 

 part that of hydrogen ; while the specific 

 heat was found to be six thousand times 

 greater than that of hydrogen, this sub- 

 stance having the greatest specific heat 

 heretofore known. These figures were ad- 

 duced simply to show the order of magni- 

 tude that may be established by further in- 

 vestigation. 



It was shown that a gas having proper- 

 ties anything like those cited could not pos- 

 sibly be confined to the earth's atmosphere, 

 and hence the new gas, being found here, 

 probably extends indefinitely into space 

 and constitutes an interstellar atmosphere, 

 whence its name. The possibility that 

 etherion may be found to be identical with 

 the so-called ether was touched upon, and 

 Dr. Brush expressed the hope that it would 

 be found to account for at least some of the 

 phenomena heretofore attributed to the 

 ether. No spectroscopic data were pre- 

 sented. 



Dr. Edgar F. Smith's vice-presidential 

 address on ' An Electric Current in Organic 

 Chemistry ' was a clear-cut history, first, of 

 the application of electricity to chemistry 

 in general, then to organic bodies in par- 

 ticular. The difficulties in investigating 

 changes in organic substances wrought by 

 the electric current are great, for no single 

 line of reaction seems to be followed in- 

 variably and numerous by-products are 

 formed. As this valuable contribution to 

 the historj' of Electro-chemistry offered by 

 a pioneer in and authority on the subject 

 has been published in Science, no further 

 reference will be made to it in this resume 

 of the Proceedings of Section C. 



All the papers presented at the joint ses- 

 sions were provisionally divided into the 

 following subdivisions : Inorganic, Organic, 

 Analytical, Technical, Physical, Physio- 



