784 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 205. 



etherion, by Charles F. Brush, from the pen 

 of the editor, Sir William Crookes. From 

 his long continued familiarity with work at 

 low pressures, especially in connection with 

 work on radiant energy, and on the so- 

 called meta-elements, it is hardly an ex- 

 aggeration to say that there is no more com- 

 petent critic of Brush's work than Professor 

 Crookes. He has repeated some of Brush's 

 experiments and is inclined to attribute the 

 peculiar phenomena obtained to the pres- 

 ence of a trace of aqueous vapor. This 

 seems the more probable, in view of the 

 fact that Brush found that the etherion 

 seemed to be absorbed by phosphorus pen- 

 toxid and by soda-lime. Having only seen 

 the abstract of Professor Brush's paper. 

 Professor Crookes does not assume to speak 

 authoritatively in the matter, but only of 

 the probabilities. In their modest, unas- 

 suming tone, the papers of both these dis- 

 tinguished scientists might well serve as 

 models. 



In an article on the reactions of acetylene 

 in the Zeitschrift fur anorganisohe Chemie, 

 Hugo Erdmann and Paul Kothner call at- 

 tention to the possibility of utilizing acety- 

 lene for the production of aldehyde. The 

 thought of the commercial synthetic pro- 

 duction of similar substances is not new. 

 Several years ago Kriiger and Piickert pro- 

 posed the manufacture of alcohol by pre- 

 cipitating acetylene with corrosive subli- 

 mate, treatment with hydrochloric acid and 

 reduction of the aldehyde formed ; indeed, 

 nearly half a century ago the manufacture 

 of ' mineral spirits ' was exploited. Ap- 

 parently these processes would all be too ex- 

 pensive for the production of alcohol, while 

 the continuous process of Erdmann and 

 Kothner might be a commercial possibility 

 for making the more valuable aldehyde. 

 This process consists in leading acetylene 

 through a boiling mixture of 44 % sulfuric 

 acid in the presence of mercuric oxid. 

 The aldehyde distills off and the unused 



acetj'lene is recovered. The presence of 

 phosphoric acid seems to give a purer prod- 

 uct. In a quantitative experiment from 

 125 grams calcium carbid of 95%, there 

 were obtained 80 cc. of 5% aldehyde. It 

 is not at all improbable that the cheap pro- 

 duction of acetylene from calcium carbid 

 may render possible, in the near future, many 

 syntheses of organic products on a commer- 

 cial scale. 



The verification of inorganic data of past 

 years has received a valuable contribution 

 from A. Ladenburg, in the Berichte, in the 

 redetermination of the density of ozone. 

 Soret's classic researches of thirty years ago 

 on ozone were with a mixture containing 

 only 5 per cent, ozone and hence not beyond 

 criticism. In Ladenburg's method an 8 to 

 9 per cent, mixture of ozone and oxygen 

 was directly obtained by usual methods 

 and this mixture condensed to a liquid by 

 means of liquid air. On boiling the mixture 

 much of the oxygen could be driven off, 

 and by repeating the process several times 

 a liquid mixture was obtained containing 86 

 per cent, ozone. For determination of den- 

 sity Bunsen's ' Ausstromungszeit ' method 

 was used. The density found for pure 

 ozone relative to that of oxygen was 1.456, 

 which is very close to the theoretical value 

 1.5, and the generally received composition 

 of ozone, O3, is confirmed. In this investi- 

 gation it was incidentally found that liquid 

 ozone is very dark blue and in layers two 

 or three centimeters thick completely 

 opaque ; that it is almost insoluble in water, 

 but 0.00002 part by weight and 0.01 part by 

 volume being dissolved in one of water. In 

 determining the boiling point a mixture of 

 ozone and oxygen boiled at —186° until 

 apparently only ozone was left. The ther- 

 mometer then rose to —125° when the 

 liquid ozone appeared to begin boiling. At 

 this moment a very violent explosion oc- 

 curred, the whole apparatus being shattered. 

 It would appear from this that the boiling 



