September 27, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



483 



tee on Thursday evening. Professor H. A. 

 Weber, Ohio State University, and Profess- 

 or Francis C. Phillips, University of West- 

 ern Pennsjdvania, were elected respectively 

 Vice-president and Secretary of Section C 

 for the Pittsburg meeting, 1902. 



The following is a complete list of papers 

 presented at the meeting, together with brief 

 abstracts whenever it was possible to secure 

 these from the authors. 



1. ' Eeport of the Census Committee of 

 the American Chemical Society ' : Chas. 

 Baskerville, Chairman. 



The report included a detailed resume of 

 improved conditions in the teaching of 

 chemistry in the United States ; of the es- 

 tablishment of agricultural colleges, tech- 

 nical institutions, standard bureaus ; com- 

 parative statements of the training of 

 chemists and chemical engineers in the 

 United States and indications of directions 

 for even greater improvement and extension 

 of the work of the larger institutions ; sug- 

 gestions for the guidance of growth of the 

 smaller colleges. 



The complete report will be published in 

 the memorial volume of the twenty-fifth an- 

 niversary of the American Chemical Society. 



2. 'A Summary of the Analyses of some 

 Massive and Eruptive Rocks of Boulder 

 County, Colorado ' : Chas. Skeele Palmer. 



The paper included a condensed state- 

 ment of the analyses of typical or charac- 

 teristic rocks of Boulder county. The 

 work was done largely by seniors in the 

 chemical laboratory of the University of 

 Colorado, with the view of training the in- 

 dividual student in the accuracy and inde- 

 pendence necessary for original work ; also 

 with the further view of adding to the gen- 

 eral knowledge of the composition of the 

 rocks of this region. The paper will be 

 published in the Journal of the American 

 Chemical Society. 



3. ' Recent Developments in Physical 

 Chemistry ' : Wilder D. Bancroft. 



A resume was given of the important 

 work done recently in physical chemistry 

 in the various laboratories both in the 

 United States and foreign countries. 



4. 'On the Optical Rotation of Certain 

 Tartrates in Glycerol ' : J. H. Long. 



The rotation of the ordinary tartrates in 

 water is well known, and it has been shown 

 that in dilute solutions the molecular rota- 

 tions are nearly constant. In this paper 

 the rotations of the following bodies in 

 glycerol are discussed : Potassium sodium 

 tartrate, ammonium tartrate, ammonium 

 hydrogen tartrate, potassium antimonyl 

 tartrate, ammonium antimonyl tartrate and 

 potassium boryl tartrate. 



In the cases of the antimony compounds, 

 the molecular rotations agree very well with 

 each other, and also with the rotations in 

 water solution for the same salts ; their 

 molecular rotations are therefore very dif- 

 ferent from those of the simple salts of tar- 

 taric acid, which suggests, possibly, that the 

 active acid ion here is no longer that of tar- 

 taric acid. Following the suggestion of 

 Clarke, it may be that we have here to 

 deal with salts of tartrantimonious acid 

 (C^H^OgSb)OH, the properties of which are 

 very different from those of the dibasic tar- 

 taric acid. 



The behavior of the borotartrate in gly- 

 cerol is very different from that in water, 

 and also different from that of the antimony 

 compound. It is likely that the assumed 

 analogy between these bodies does not hold. 

 There is nothing especially noteworthy in 

 the behavior of the simpler tartrates in gly- 

 cerol. For Rochelle salt the rotation is 

 larger than that in water and in marked 

 degree variable with the concentration. 



5. *■ The Atomic Volume Curve in Rela- 

 tion to the Periodic Sequence ' : Chas. 

 Skeele Palmer. 



The author proposes a new form of 

 Lothar Meyer's curve which seems to indi- 

 cate the form in short and long independ- 



