June 12, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



939 



the theory advanced by Staigmiiller, showing 

 a reasonably close agreement. The heats of 

 solution in water were also determined. 



An article by E. H. Hall ' On C„ for Liquids 

 and the a of Van der Waals ' called attention 

 to a disagreement between observation and 

 certain conclusions based upon Van der 

 Waal's equation. 



Mr. A. W. Smith described the methods 

 used in a careful redetermination of the Heat 

 of Fusion of Ice. An electrical method was 

 employed, every precaution being taken to 

 obtain results in absolute units. A calcula- 

 tion based upon a preliminary determination 

 gives 334.25 joules for the heat of fusion of 

 ice prepared from pure distilled water. 

 ^ Mr. J. S. Shearer reported the results of a 

 determination of the ' Heat of Vaporization 

 of Nitrogen,' the method being that previously 

 used by him in determining the heat of vapor- 

 ization of oxygen. The vakie found was 49.8 

 calories per gram. Since the latent heat of 

 oxygen is much greater than this, it becomes 

 a matter of interest to determine the heat of 

 vaporization of air as a function of its com- 

 position. This determination had been car- 

 ried out by J. S. Shearer and F. E. Strayer, 

 who reported that the heat required to vaporize 

 air is the same as would be required to 

 vaporize the constituents separately. 



It has long been loiown that ordinary slow 

 evaporation is not accompanied by electrifica- 

 tion. When a mass of water is suddenly shat- 

 tered, however, as in jets, marked electrical 

 effects are produced, but these persist only for 

 a short time. The question then arises 

 whether electrical effects may not be present 

 in ordinary cases of evaporation, vanishing 

 so quickly as to be undetected. Experiments 

 to test this point, by investigating cases of 

 sudden evaporation or condensation, were de- 

 scribed in a paper by Carl Barus. JSTo elec- 

 trical effects could be detected. 



Mr. Barus also presented a paper showing 

 that condensation nuclei are produced by the 

 mixture of ordinary coal gas and air. The 

 nuclei are not ionized. They are probably 

 due to chemical action resulting from the 

 presence of sulphur in the gas. 



' A Preliminary Note on the Selective Ab- 



sorption of Organic Compounds in tue Infra- 

 red ' was presented by W. W. Coblentz. 

 Thirty-eight substances had thus far been 

 studied, observations extending to a wave- 

 length of 15 /i. The results were of especial 

 interest in the case of related compounds, for 

 example, the substitution derivatives of 

 benzene. Certain radicals, such as OH and 

 CH3, were found to produce well-defined bands 

 in the absorption spectrum of any substance 

 in which they appeared. In some instances 

 series of bands were found in which the wave- 

 lengths were simple multiples of one another 

 (e. g., CH3 bands were found at 3.5^, 7.0 /i, 

 10.5 fi). As its title indicated, the report is 

 preliminary. Mr. Coblentz is to continue 

 the work with the aid of a grant from the 

 Carnegie Institution. 



The remaining papers on the program were : 

 ' An Attempt to Construct an Electrostatic 

 Transformer,' J. E. Ives ; ' Note on the Bend- 

 ing of Eock Salt,' W. W. Coblentz; ' A Modi- 

 fication of the Quadrant Electrometer with- 

 out Liquid Contacts,' C. Bartis. 



At the meeting of the council fifty-five new 

 members were elected. This number of elec- 

 tions exceeds that of any previous meeting, 

 and doubtless indicates the appreciation by 

 the physicists of the country of the recent ar- 

 rangement made by the society with Science 

 Abstracts and the Physical Review. The pro- 

 ceedings of the society are now published in 

 the Physical Beview, which is sent to all mem- 

 „ bers. The Physical Society also cooperates 

 with the Institution of Electrical Engineers 

 and the Physical Society of London in the 

 support of Science Abstracts. Membership in 

 the Physical Society thus carries with it a sub- 

 scription to both the Review and the pure 

 science part of Science Abstracts, at a total 

 cost of only a little more than half the regular 

 price of these two journals. 



Under these circumstances it is evident that 

 the question of discrimination in the election 

 of new members becomes an important one. 

 The question was discussed at some length, 

 and the sentiment in favor of a distinctly 

 conservative policy was unmistakable. The 

 Physical Society is not to be an honorary 

 society, such, for example, as the National 



