It is now shown that similar results are obtained in absence of dextrose even when the racemic acid, used in the preparation of the sodium ammonium salt, has been repeatedly crystallised from water. This preferential deposition of the d-tartrate may be due to the seeding of the solutions by laboratory dust, or to the presence of a minute excess of the d-acid in the racemic acid employed; the results obtained on fractionally crystallising commercial racemic acid itself seem to show that the complete removal of extremely small quantities of dextrorotatory impurity is a very difficult matter.

*3. "Formation of cyclohexanone Derivatives from Olefinic Compounds." By SIEGFried Ruhemann. Although the esters of acetylenic acids form additive products with phenols, olefinic monocarboxylic esters or olefinic monoketones do not unite with sodium phenoxide. Condensation, however, takes place if the number of electronegative groups in an olefinic compound is increased. The additive compound of ethyl benzylideneacetoacetate with sodium phenoxide at once condenses, thus

2CH Ph(OPh) CHAC CO2Et=C26H28O6 +2C6H5OH, yielding a compound, C26H2806, which has twice the inolecular formula of ethyl benzylideneacetoacetate. The substance is regarded as a cyclohexanone derivative, CHPh.CH(CO2Et).

which in nearly all cases the matter is stated more simply and also more graphically than in an article. The truth of this general statement is well illustrated by this book, which is a reproduction with some extensions of a lecture delivered by Prof. Bruni before the Chemical Society at Breslau. The text is divided into numerous very short chapters, each one discussing some single point; many summaries are given, and as little mathematics as possible is introduced. The text is thus easy to follow, and, moreover, it gives a survey of the whole subject, details being avoided as far as possible. The lecture was divided into two parts, the first dealing with the nature of solid solutions, their methods of formation and most important properties, and the second giving a discussion of the disputed question of isomorphism in the light of recent advances. The relation between crystalline form and chemical constitution is well treated, and an ingenious table shows at a glance the behaviour of the elements, especially the metals, when they separate from mixed binary melts.

CORRESPONDENCE.

FELLOWSHIP OF THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY.

CHMe:CAC CO2Et.

Guide Pratique du Chimiste Métallurgiste et de l'Essayeur; ("Practical Guide for the Metallurgical Chemist and Assayer "). By L. CAMPREDON. Second Edition. Paris: Ch. Béranger. 1909.

THIS work contains detailed descriptions of various methods of analysis employed in metallurgy and assaying, together with in most cases sufficient information on their applicability to enable the chemist to come to a judicious decision as to which one to adopt in particular cases. The number of methods described, however, for a given constituent is often large, and occasionally a little more definite statements with regard to which one is most usually or satisfactorily employed might have been an advantage. The rare earths are included, and particular care has been taken to overlook no essential details of manipulation and to make the book a thoroughly practical laboratory guide; indeed, in some respects the author has carried his endeavours after completeness rather far, and there is some matter dealing with quite elementary processes and apparatus which might have been omitted without in any way diminishing the usefulness of the book.

Feste Losungen und Isomorphismus.

("Solid Solutions and Isomorphism "). By Dr. GIUSEPPI BRUNI. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft. 1908.

ONE of the easiest ways of getting a general idea of a branch of any scientific subject is to read a good lecture in

To the Editor of the Chemical News. SIR,-It has come to our notice that a report has been widely circulated and credited to the effect that the movement in favour of the admission of women to the Fellowship of the Chemical Society is directly connected with the present agitation for the political enfranchisement of women. We, the undersigned women (actively engaged in chemical teaching and research), beg to ask for the hospitality of your columns in order to deny any such connection. The following facts, we venture to think, should prove the independence of the two movements:

1. Five years ago when some of us petitioned the Council of the Chemical Society to admit us to the Fellowship, the agitation in favour of "Woman Suffrage" was not prominently before the public.

2. The petition recently presented to the Council originated within the Chemical Society itself, and was signed exclusively by Fellows of the Society.

Moreover, we, as a body, have no knowledge of the political opinions and aspirations held by individual members; any such knowledge we should consider to be quite irrelevant, since the only link which unites us is a common interest in the science of chemistry. We are glad to take this opportunity of recording our thanks to those Fellows of the Chemical Society who have expressed themselves in favour of admitting women to the Fellowship of the Society.-We are, &c.,

(Signed)

HEATHER H. BEVERIDGE, B.Sc., Carnegie Research Scholar, Univ. of Edinburgh.

MARY BOYLE, B.Sc., Lecturer and Demonstrator in
Chemistry, Royal Holloway College.

K. A. BURKE, B.Sc., Assistant in Department of
Chemistry, University College, London.
FRANCES CHICK, B.Sc.

LOUISA CLEAVERLEY.

MARGARET D. DOUGAL, Indexer of the Publications of the Chemical Society.

C. DE B. EVANS. D.Sc., Lecturer in Chemistry, London School of Medicine for Women.

E. ELEANOR FIELD, M.A., Senior Staff Lecturer in Chemistry, Royal Holloway College.

EMILY L. B. FORSTER, Private Assistant to Prof. Huntington, King's College, London.

CHEMICAL NEWS,

Feb. 5, 1909

71

HILDA J. HARTLE, B.Sc., Lecturer in Chemistry, Homerton Training College, Cambridge.

E. M. HICKMANS, M.Sc.

SOURCES.

IDA F. HOMFRAY, B.SC.

E. S. HOOPER, B.Sc., F.I.C., Assistant Lecturer and Demonstrator, Portsmouth Municipal College. EDITH HUMPHREY, B.Sc., Ph.D., Chemist to A. Sanderson and Sons.

ZELDA KAHAN, B.Sc.

NORAH E. LAYCOCK, B.Sc., Demonstrator in Chemistry,
London School of Medicine for Women.
ELISON A. MACADAM, F.I.C., Private Assistant to
Prof. Huntington, King's College, London.
EFFIE G. MARSDEN.

MARGARET MCKILLOP, M.A., Lecturer in Chemistry,
King's College, Women's Department.

AGNES M. MOODIE, M.A., B.Sc. NORA RENOUF, late Salter's Research Fellow, School of Pharmacy.

IDA SMEDLEY, D.Sc., Assistant Lecturer and Demonstrator in Chemistry, Victoria University, Manchester.

ALICE E. SMITH, B.Sc., Assistant Lecturer and Senior
Demonstrator in Chemistry, University College of
North Wales, Bangor.

MILLICENT TAYLOR, B.Sc., Lecturer in Chemistry,
Ladies' College, Cheltenham.
M. BEATRICE THOMAS, M.A., Lecturer in Chemistry,
Girton College, Cambridge.

M. A. WHITELEY, D.Sc., A.R.C.S., Demonstrator in
Organic Chemistry, Royal College of Science,

London.

SIBYL T. WIDDOWS, B.Sc., Head of Practical Chemistry Department, London School of Medi

cine for Women. KATHARINE I. WILLIAMS.

Since the above was written the following letter has been sent to the signatories of the original petition :

London, January 30, 1909. DEAR SIR,-At a meeting of representative women chemists held on the 8th inst., a hearty vote of thanks was accorded to the 312 Fellows of the Chemical Society who presented the petition to the Council praying for the admission of women to the Fellowship. At the same meeting it was unanimously decided that it is not advisable for women to take advantage of the new regulation adopted by the Council whereby women are permitted to become "Subscribers." In conveying to you, as one of the signatories of the petition, our thanks for your efforts to obtain for us recognition of our claim to be admitted to the Fellowship, we wish to state that the above decision was reached only after careful consideration of its bearing on the fundamental question on which the petition and referendum were based. We are of opinion that by becoming Subscribers to the Chemical Society we should prejudice unfavourably the case for granting to women the Fellowship of the Society.-We are, &c.,

(Signed as above).

Impersonation.—A Warning.—Consulting and analytical chemists and others are again warned against receiving a tall seedy-looking man, who, on the plea of ill-health, solicits pecuniary or other assistance by impersonating a certain Fellow of the Institute of Chemistry in practice at Warrington

des Sciences. Vol. cxlvii., No. 26, December 28, 1908. Law of the Optimum of Cathode Phosphorescence of Binary Systems.-G. Urbain.-The following are the general results of the author's experimental work on cathode phosphorescence :-1. As Lecoq de Boisbaudran has maintained, pure substances exhibit no appreciable phosphorescence; bright phosphorescence is always due to the mixture of at least two substances. 2. In a phosphorescent binary system the optimum of phosphorescence always corresponds to small quantities of phosphorogen. 3. The optimum law is general, applying to ordinary substances and to the rare earths. 4. The coloration of the phosphorescence and its spectrum may vary with the degree of dilution of the phosphorogen. 5. With preparations made from pure substances all the spectral variations observed in the intermediate mixtures which the fractionation of the rare earths gives can be reproduced. Thus these variations do not prove that the fractionation has split a simple substance into several constituents. The optimum law may be enunciated as follows:-In every phosphorescent binary system in which the relative proportions of phosphorogen and diluent are varied each band of phosphorescence passes through an optimum, and the optima of different bands do not necessarily coincide, although they always correspond to relatively feeble proportions of phosphorogen.

This

Reduction of Uranyl Chloride.-Oechsner de Coninck. Uranyl chloride is readily reduced at an incipient_red heat by hydrogen, UO2Cl2+2H = UO2+ 2HCI. process the author has applied to determine the atomic weight of chlorine, but the results obtained did not agree very well; the mean value was 35 36. Uranyl chloride, moreover, has a tendency to dissociate into chlorine and a subchloride, and it reacts very readily with the water vapour of the air, giving hydrochloric acid and uranium trioxide, UO2Cl2 + H2O = UO3 + 2HCl.

Preparation of Ether Salts of the Cyclic Series.A. Béhal.-When a mixture of benzyl chloride and acetic acid is heated, hydrochloric acid is set free and an ether salt of the cyclic radicle is formed. The author has shown that the hydrogen of the acid OH group is eliminated with the chlorine of the molecule of benzyl chloride, and benzyl acetate is thus formed. Many halogen salts of the metals or compounds of the metals which are decomposed by the hydracids (oxides, carbonates, organic salts) promote the course of the reaction. Some of these substances induce condensation and some do not.

Preparation and Properties of 8-Gluco-heptite.L. H. Philippe.-By reducing -gluco-heptonic lactone with sodium amalgam at - 2° and eliminating the sodium sulphate formed by means of alcohol, a colourless syrup is obtained containing B-heptose and sodium heptonate. This syrup the author dissolved in water and treated again with sodium amalgam, shaking thoroughly. After separating the sodium sulphate and concentrating the solution the heptite may be isolated by dissolving in alcohol at 95°, in which sodium heptonate is insoluble. The composition of 3-gluco-heptite corresponds to the formula C-H1607, the constitutional formula being

cent and increases rapidly with the temperature. It is nearly insoluble in cold alcohol. It fuses at 130° to 131° like its a-isomer, but differs from the latter in optical activity, being feebly dextrorotatory in aqueous solution. It becomes lævo-rotatory in presence of borax.

Vol. cxlviii., No. 1, January 4, 1909.

Density of Methane. Atomic Weight of Carbon. -Georges Baume and F. Louis Perrot.-Accurate determinations of the density of methane show that the mean value of the weight of a normal litre is 0.7168 grm. From the molecular weight thus obtained the value of the atomic weight of carbon can be calculated. The mean value is

STANDARD BOOKS

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air. It fuses at 184° to a colourless mobile liquid, the density of which varies from o'477 to 0.406.

Hydrogen Silicides.-P. Lebeau.-The author has treated a large quantity of magnesium silicide with hydrochloric acid and condensed the hydrogen silicides formed in liquid air. When the solidified products are allowed to assume the temperature of the air a gaseous product is obtained and a colourless liquid is left behind. By cooling the gaseous product in liquid air and slowly fractionating, Si2H6 is obtained and the liquid residue appears to be Si2H4, which is very inflammable in oxygen.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Reduction of Salicylic Acid to Salicylic Aldehyde. -Hugo Weil.-Sodium salicylate is very readily reduced by sodium amalgam in aqueous solution at the ordinary temperature, if boric acid is also present, the product of the reaction being salicylic aldehyde. The yield is greater if an aromatic amine (especially p-toluidine) is added to the liquid. A difficultly soluble Schiff's base is thus formed, and up to 60 per cent of the theoretical yield of aldehyde can be obtained. The residue is a paste, probably a condensation product of salicylic alcohol.-Ber., xli., No. 17.

MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK.

TUESDAY, 9th.-Royal Institution, 3. "Architectural and Sculptural Antiquities of India," by Prof. A. A. Macdonell. Faraday Society, 8. "Applications of Electrolytic Chlorine to Sewage Purification and Deodorisation by the Oxychlorides' Process," by S. Rideal. "New Electrical Hardening Furnace," by E. Sabersky. "Bosnia and Herze

WEDNESDAY, 10th.-Royal Society of Arts, 8.

govina," by A. R. Colquhoun. THURSDAY, 11th.-Royal Institution, 3. "Revival of Modern Drama," by William Archer, M.A.

FRIDAY, 12th.-Royal Institution, 9. "The Electrical Properties of
Flame," by Prof. H. A. Wilson, F.R.S., &c.
Physical, 8. (Annual General Meeting).
SATURDAY, 13th. -Royal Institution, 3. "Mendelssohn," Sir Alexander
C. Mackenzie. (With the kind assistance of the
Hans Wessely Quartette).

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