August 19, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



249 



in the hybrid seed in some cases. Grown 

 through the past winter and spring, and com- 

 ing into maturity during July, it became ap- 

 parent as the heads came out, that but one of 

 the supposed hybrid plants was to exhibit rye 

 characters in its gross morphology. This one, 

 however, is most interesting. The general 

 type of the head is that of the rye throughout, 

 long, narrow and nodding. The spikelets have 

 the elongate narrow form of rye spikelets, but 

 lack the awns on the flowering glumes, which 

 are, moreover, markedly pubescent like those 

 of the wheat parent. The empty gliunes are 

 of the Triticum rather than the Secale type. 

 In form of outline the anthers differ altogether 

 from those of either parent. The leaves of 

 the hybrid were free from the rust that affected 

 the wheat parent. Four heads were produced 

 by the hybrid plant, all of which were alike in 

 type. Variance among the different heads 

 borne on the same plant has been observed by 

 the writer in the ease of wheat variety-hybrids. 

 But in this instance no such phenomenon was 

 evident. Any observer would have recognized 

 at a casual glance the extraordinary rye form 

 in the entire group of hybrid heads. Material 

 killed in Flemming's solution of the sporophyte 

 vegetative structures and of stages in the de- 

 velopment of the spores in the hybrid and of 

 both of its parents, will be stiidied later, with 

 respect to cytological details. It should be 

 stated that attempts at crossing the rye again 

 on the hybrid failed, and that none of the 

 hybrid ilowers became self -fertilized with one 

 exception. The result, however, is a seed 

 badly shriveled in the region of the embryo, 

 and which does not promise germination. 



H. F. Egberts. 

 Kansas Experiment Station, 

 Manhattan, Kansas, 

 July 29, 1904. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 



THE MELTING POINT OF GOLD. 



No little work has been done in recent years 

 on the determination of the melting point of 

 pure gold, as owing to the ease with which 

 gold can be obtained in a very pure condition, 

 this affords a valuable constant for high tem- 

 perature work. In the latest experiments. 



which have been carried out by Jacquerod and 

 Perrot and described in the Oomptes Rendus, 

 advantage has been taken of the fused quartz 

 nitrogen thermometer, as owing to the small 

 coefflcient of silica, the correction for the ex- 

 pansion of the bulb is very small. The gold 

 was heated in a special type of electrical re- 

 sistance furnace, in. which the temperature 

 could be very accurately controlled, and the 

 comparison with the thermometer was direct. 

 The fusing point was found to be 1067.2° C. 

 which is slightly higher than the 1061° deter- 

 mined by Callendar, Heycock and Neville, but 

 lower than some other recent determinations. 



FUSED SOAPSTONE FIBERS. 



The use of fused quartz was first brought 

 to notice by Professor Boys, who found that 

 quartz could be drawn into exceedingly fine 

 fibers, which especially on account of their 

 small elastic fatigue were superior to all other 

 fibers for suspensions. From this beginning, 

 by the labora of Professor Shenstone and 

 others, the possibility of using fused quartz on 

 a much larger scale has been realized, and now 

 all the commoner forms of laboratory utensils 

 can be made of this material. The chief ad- 

 vantages are the great resistance of quartz to 

 most reagents, and its small coefficient of ex- 

 pansion. In a recent number of the Physical 

 Review, Mr. K. E. Guthe shows that fused 

 soapstone can be used to some extent like 

 fused quartz. When heated in the gas- 

 oxygen flame, it melts readily to a clear glass 

 and can be drawn out into very fine fibers 

 which have all the advantages of quartz fibers, 

 and it is possible that other industrial uses 

 may be found for it. 



EXPLOSIONS FROM FERROSILICON. 



Last January two mysterious explosions 

 took place at Liverpool in drums containing 

 ferrosilicon. The cause of these explosions 

 has been investigated by A. Dupre an,d M. B. 

 Lloyd, and a paper dealing with the subject 

 was read by them at the meeting of the Iron 

 and Steel Institute. They consider that the 

 probable cause of the explosions was the pres- 

 ence in the drulns of water, which by its ac- 

 tion upon the ferrosilicon occasioned the gen- 



