November 25, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



725 



farreacliiug subject of chemical equilib- 

 rium is receiving more and more attention 

 every year. There has been great ac- 

 tivity in the fascinating field of electro- 

 chemistry, and it is pleasing to see that 

 some of the fundamental notions of this 

 new science are coming to be recognized by 

 the analyst and the technical chemist. Not 

 least among the startling events of the year 

 had been the supposed discovery of a num- 

 ber of new elements, crypton, neon, metar- 

 gon, coronium and etherion ; if these really 

 exist, we have here a series of brilliant 

 chemical discoveries made solely by means 

 of physical instruments and operations. 



The most important of these interesting 

 investigations are undoubtedly as well 

 known to you as to your speaker, for in 

 this day the sources of information are 

 equally open to all ; hence it would be a 

 work of supererogation for me to discourse 

 upon .them in detail, even if there were time 

 to do so. I prefer, therefore, to call your at- 

 tention to some unpublished work with 

 wliich you can hardly be so familiar ; I 

 mean the phj^sio-chemical problems which 

 have enlivened the last winter's laborator3' 

 work at Harvard. Since these covered a 

 somewhat extensive field their exposition 

 may serve the double purpose of illustration 

 and information. It is a pleasure to state 

 that most of these researches would not 

 have been thought of without the inspiring 

 example and precept of the great men of 

 whom I have spoken. The host of inter- 

 esting investigations thus prompted in all 

 civilized lands afford the best possible proof 

 of the value of the modern physico-chem- 

 ical hypotheses. 



Dr. Gordon, the Harvard assistant in 

 physical chemistry, has finished a very in- 

 teresting series of measurements of the po- 

 tentials of galvanic cells composed of metal- 

 lic plates immersed in fused salts at high 

 temperatures. After overcoming experi- 

 mental difficulties, too numerous to mention. 



he succeeded in obtaining constant values 

 which agree remarkably with Nernst's for- 

 mula and throw interesting light on the 

 degree of dissociation existing in fused salts. 



Mr. Edward Collins has nearly finished 

 an elaborate attempt to verify Faraday's law 

 with rigid exactness, an attempt which has 

 met with greater success than any previous 

 one. 



Mr. G. ]Sr. Lewis made a series of careful 

 measurements of the change of the poten- 

 tial of numerous reversible electrodes with 

 the temperature, as well as a comprehen- 

 sive revision of Meyer's inaccurate work on 

 concentration cells involving amalgams of 

 different strengths. In the thermodynamic 

 discussion of the results Mr. Lewis arrived 

 at some very interesting conclusions con- 

 cerning strong as well as weak solutions of 

 metal in mercury, and extended his experi- 

 ment and mathematical analysis to the con- 

 sideration of the potential of the unamalga- 

 mated metal in a solution of one of its salts. 

 It is needless to say that this question is 

 one of wide significance, but lack of time 

 prevents my doing more than call attention 

 to it now. Mr. Lewis's preliminary paper 

 will appear earlj' in the fall. 



Mr. F. E. Fraprie spent much time in 

 studying the eccentricities of inversion tem- 

 peratures and transition intervals exhib- 

 ited by the double sulphates of potassium 

 and manganese. This problem proved to 

 be far more complex and interesting than 

 the similar case involving magnesium in- 

 stead of manganese, a case which has been 

 so carefully investigated under Van't Hoff's 

 supervision. While Mr. Fraprie was not 

 able to push the matter to completion he 

 obtained data enough to enable one to plot 

 many of the most essential curves and to 

 draw a mental sketch of the situation. It 

 is hoped that this work may be continued 

 during the present year. 



Mr. Faber, in the course of a research 

 having a more practical end as its chief 



