Vol.. 7, 1921 CHEMISTRY: SHERMAN, ET AL. 279 
q*i = fe, P+lW+l =*= (v>-2,P-l)^/-l, 
f*i = <p 2 df+i =*= <p- 2 df-i, s = df +1 df-i. 
5. A paper giving the above and other developments in particular 
is to appear in the September (1921) number of the Annals of Mathematics. 
An article relating to the role of invariant elements 6 in algebraic orthog- 
onal and boolean invariant theory appeared in the Transactions of the 
American Mathematical Society, vol. 20 (1919), and a paper containing 
like theory for invariants of relativity and modular invariants appeared 
in the same Transactions for the year 1920. Further researches are in 
progress. 
1 Elliott, Proc. London Math. Soc, 33 (1901). 
2 Christoffel, Crelle, J. Math., 70 (1869). 
3 Ricci and Levi-Civita, Math. Ann., 54 (1901). 
4 J. E. Wright, Invariants of Quadratic Differential Forms, Cambridge tracts (1908). 
6 Maschke, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc, 1 (1900); 4 (1903). 
6 O. E. Glenn, Ann. Math., 20 (1918). 
THE EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE AND OF THE CONCEN- 
TRATION OF HYDROGEN IONS UPON THE RATE OF 
DESTRUCTION OF ANTISCORBUTIC VITAMIN 
(VITAMIN C) 
By H. C. Sherman, V K. La Mer and H. L. Campbell 
Department of Chemistry, Columbia University 
Communicated by W. A. Noyes, July 29, 1921 
In these experiments the vitamin was determined by means of feeding 
experiments with guineapigs according to the general method made 
familiar by Hess' recent monograph. 1 Cohen and Mendel, 2 Givens 
and McCluggage, 3 and the workers at the Lister Institute 4 among 
other investigators of the antiscorbutic vitamin, have emphasized the 
importance of basal diets which shall supply all other nutritive require- 
ments and yet furnish none of the vitamin in question or only negligible 
traces of it. Further investigation of this point led the present writers 
to adopt the following as an improvement upon the diets previously 
proposed. 
Basal Ration Used. — Ground whole oats were mixed with skimmed milk 
powder which had been heated sufficiently to ensure destruction of such 
antiscorbutic vitamin as it might contain without so changing the flavor 
as to cause it to be refused by the experimental animals. The heat treat- 
ment necessary to ensure complete destruction of vitamin C in the skimmed 
milk powder should be determined by each investigator for his own mate- 
rial and technique of heating. In our experiments two hours' heating 
