294  Some  Recent  Literature.  {Am'/u0nUe;imrm' 
Anethol. — According  to  the  recent  Bericht  of  Schimmel  &  Co.,  the 
use  of  anethol  is  rapidly  displacing  that  of  oil  of  anise.  This  is,  of 
course,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  slight  difference  in  price  is  more 
than  compensated  for  by  the  10  per  cent,  of  other  and  usually  use- 
less constituents  that  are  present  in  commercial  oil  of  anise  in 
addition  to  the  anethol. 
SOME  RECENT  LITERATURE. 
AN  ATTEMPT  AT  A  CHEMICAL  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  UNIVERSAL  ETHER. 
D.  J.  Mendeleeff,  the  celebrated  author  of  the  "  Periodic  System 
of  the  Elements,"  has  published  some  speculations  in  regard  to  the 
ether. 
From  a  realistic  standpoint  it  is  inevitable  that  weight  and  chem- 
ical individuality  should  be  ascribed  to  the  ether.  It  must  be  a 
distinct  chemical  substance  so  light  that  it  can  escape  the  attraction 
of  the  fixed  stars  by  the  swiftness  of  the  motion  of  its  molecules ;. 
it  can  have  no  chemical  affinity ;  its  power  of  diffusion  must  be  so 
great  that  it  can  penetrate  all  bodies,  and  thus  elude  being  weighed, 
although  it  actually  possesses  a  very  minute  weight.  It  can  be 
assumed  to  be  an  inactive  gas  of  the  argon-helium  series  with  very 
small  atomic  weight.  By  means  of  interpolation  the  author  has 
predicted  new  elements  (scandium,  gallium,  and  germanium),  and 
he  ventures  to  make  ^mpolations  below  helium.  In  the  place 
before  hydrogen  he  assumes  the  existence  of  an  inactive  element,, 
which  possibly  is  identical  with  coronium,  with  an  atomic  weight 
estimated  at  about  0  4.  The  ether  must  have  a  still  smaller  atomic 
weight,  the  value  of  which,  <  0-17,  on  account  of  the  double  extra- 
polation, is  very  uncertain.  For  the  ether  as  an  element  the  author 
proposes  preliminarily  the  name  Newtonium.  He  calculates  also,, 
that,  in  order  that  it  might  escape  from  the  largest  bodies  of  the 
universe,  the  atomic  weight  of  the  ether  might  necessarily  be  as 
small  as  one-millionth  of  that  of  hydrogen. 
The  author  gives,  in  addition,  a  realistic  explanation  of  radio- 
activity by  supposing  that  the  radio-active  elements  (U,  Th,  Ra),  on 
account  of  their  abnormally  high  atomic  weights,  are  capable  of 
holding  a  relatively  large  number  of  the  ether  atoms  about  their 
large  centres  of  mass,  without  combining  with  them  chemically,  and 
that  the  arrival  and  departure  of  the  ether  molecules  is  accompanied 
