OCTOBEB 2, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



471 



31st, at 11:30 a. m. Vice-President W. A. 

 Noyes of Terre Haute, Ind., was in the 

 chair, and F. P. Venable, of Chapel Hil], IST. 

 C, was Secretary, 



Dr. E. A. de Schweinitz, of Washington, 

 was chosen member of the Council, and Dr. 

 Charles H. Herty, of Athens, Ga., Press 

 Secretary. Dr. A. L. Springer was elected 

 member of the Nominating Committee. 

 Drs. McMurtrie, Norton and Baskerville 

 were added to the committee to nominate of- 

 ficers of the Section., and Prof. F. C. Phillips, 

 Prof. S. A. Lattimore and Prof. F. W. Clarke 

 were added to the Sectional Committee. 



The Section then adjourned until 4:30 p. 

 m. At that hour the Section assembled to 

 hear the Vice-Presidential address of Prof. 

 W. A. Noyes. He was introduced in a few 

 appropriate words by the Vice-President for 

 1895, Dr. Wm. McMurtrie, and made an ad- 

 dress on ' The Achievements of Physical 

 Chemistry,' which is printed in full above. 



On Tuesday the Section assembled at 11 

 a. m. and the regular program of papers 

 was taken up. 



Prof. F. W. Clarke reported for the com- 

 mittee on indexing chemical literature. In 

 addition he reported work now in progress 

 by Dr. Bolton on the preparation of an in- 

 dex of inaugural dissertations. This is the 

 first effort to index this matter. 



Dr. Edward Hart reported on the loan 

 made by the Association to him for prosecu- 

 ting work on the method of preparation and 

 purification of glucinum. The work is not 

 yet complete, but he hopes to prepare gluci- 

 num on a commercial scale by reduction of 

 the oxide with magnesium in a glucina cru- 

 cible. The Section expressed approval of 

 the work. 



The following papers were presented be- 

 fore the Section. 



PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY. 



A. A. Noyes and G. C. Abbott, Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology: on ' Deter- 



mination of Osmotic Pressure from Vapor 

 Pressure Measurements.' The authors de- 

 rive, from thermo- dynamical considerations, 

 a formula by means of which the osmotic 

 pressure can be calculated directly from the 

 vapor pressure, and deduce from it the law 

 that osmotic pressure and work are directly 

 proportional to one another, no specific 

 volume correction being required as assumed 

 by many previous investigators. The au- 

 thors further describe an experimental 

 method for determining vapor pressure and 

 communicate measurements on ether solu- 

 tions of napthaline and azo-benzene. The 

 results show that vant' Hoff's law of the 

 identity of osmotic and gas pressure under 

 similar conditions is fully confirmed, and 

 that the osmotic pressure varies almost 

 directly as the concentrations. 



W. D. Bancroft, Cornell University: '■ Dis- 

 tillation with Vapor.' From experimental 

 data the author is led to conclude that 

 solids present in vapors obey certain chem- 

 ical laws, and are not simply mechanically 

 suspended in the vapor. The author is now 

 engaged in a revision of the experimental 

 data. 



H. C. Jones, Johns Hopkins University : 

 '■ A Physico-chemical Study of Water Solu- 

 tions of some of the Alums.' By electrical 

 conductivity measurements the author 

 shows that in rather concentrated solutions 

 there is present some of the undissociated 

 double salt. In very dilute solutions, com- 

 plete dissociation takes place. 



J. H. Kastle, State College of Kentucky : 

 'The Hydrolysis of the Sulphonic Ethers.' 

 The hydrolysis of the sulphonic ethers is 

 brought about by water and also by the 

 alcohols. It was found that in solution in 

 acetone, water is about 3.5 times stronger in 

 its hydrolyzing power than methyl and ethyl 

 alcohol, which were found to be about equal 

 in this capacity. It was found also that 

 acids do not act by catalysis on the sul- 

 phonic ethers, but actually enter into double 



