It was thought that thionyl chloride might react with diethyl oxalate to form oxalyl chloride, but no reaction too place upon refluxing the mixture for forty-eight hours. This is the only method by which malonyl chloride can be prepared, since phosphorus pentachloride converts malonic acid into carbon suboxide. It is a liquid which distils at 55° (15 mm.) and turns dark red on standing. The literature records that succinic anhydride can best be made by this method. Suberic and sebacic acids are reported as forming dichlorides.

THE HYDROXY ACIDS.

The action of this reagent on the hydroxy acids has not been studied very extensively. Malic acid is mentioned as formin a dichloride, while no reference is made to tartaric acid. Lactic acid yields a variety of

Acid.

products. Tartaric acid is the only one of this group studied by us. 15 g. of the acid was refluxed for several days with 40 cc. of thionyl chloride without any result. No suitable solvent for the acid could be found in which to carry out the reaction.

UNSATURATED DIBASIC ACIDS.

Fumaric, mesaconic and bromomaleic acids are described as forming dichlorides, while maleic, citraconic and itaconic acids form anhydrides. We obtained a 90 per cent. yield of maleic anhydride but could not get fumaric acid to react. Benzene, petroleum, ether and pyridine were used as solvents without success. We intend to repeat the action of thionyl chloride on the other unsaturated dibasic acids mentioned, since our work does not agree with the results given in the literature.

Heumann and Koechlin studied the action of thionyl chloride on benzoic acid. We obtained a 98 per cent. yield against one of 90 per cent. by the phosphorus pentachloride method. Meyer has prepared by

The polarographic method has been apapplied to the microanalysis of reducible substances in Japanese fermentation products (sake, shoyu, wine and beer) and to the estimation of impurities in commercial isoamyl alcohol.

WHOLESALE PRICES IN FEBRUARY.

BOARD OF TRADE INDEX NUMBER.

As measured at the Board of Trade, wholesale prices were somewhat lower, on the average, in February than in January, the index numbers for the two months being 84.4 and 84.9 respectively (1924 100). The average for the three food groups shows a fall of 1.1 per cent., and meat and fish by 4.9 per cent., comparing the average of February prices with figures for January, while miscellaneous foods became dearer by 1.8 per cent. The February index for the five groups of industrial materials is lower than the January index by 0.5 per cent. The greatest price movements were in textile materials, cotton showing a fall of 2.3 per cent., and other textiles a rise of 1.7 per cent. The averages for metals and minerals other than iron and steel, and for miscellaneous materials indicate reductions of 0.6 per cent. in each of those two groups. Slight changes in both directions in iron and steel prices in February resulted in the index remaining the same as that for January.

CITY'S WAR ON SMOKE.

The Manchester Corporation is setting an example to citizens in regard to smoke abatement.

According to Mr. R. M. Rowe, Technical, Chemical and Smoke Inspector to the Corporation, experiments have recently been made at the Town Hall in the use of coalite, the smokeless residual fuel of low temperature carbonisation, in open grates, and these are now to be repeated on an extended scale.

It is understood that there will be a three months' trial at the Town Hall, in civic buildings and in the hospitals.

GAS HEATING IN THEATRES. SPECIALLY DESIGNED RADIATORS FOR THE NEW PALLADIUM.

The practice of heating theatres and other large buildings by specially-designed gas radiators appears to be growing.

Recently a number of these appliances, known as the "St. Martin," manufactured

by John Wright & Co., of Birmingham, were installed in the Capitol Picture Theatre, Haymarket, S.W., and now the Gas, Light and Coke Company have a contract in hand to fix no fewer than 79 of these radiators, finished in old gold, in the vestibule and auditorium of the Palladium Theatre, W., which has now re-opened as a "cinevariety" house.

The "St. Martin," which has been approved by the London County Council for public buildings, is automatically controlled to maintain an unvarying temperature in the hall, corridor, or apartment in which it is placed, and has been designed to avoid the necessity for a flue when used in large buildings. The burner is totally enclosed, and is lighted by means of a special aperture which is automatically sealed by the closing of a small circular plate. Coloured glasses in the base of the radiator show when the burner is alight.

OIL FROM COAL.

Interesting information on the progress of low temperature carbonisation was given by Commodore H. Douglas King, Secretary for Mines, in the House of Commons on Tuesday, March 13, in reply to a question by Mr. David Grenfell.

"There are now," he said, "five plants each designed for a throughput of 100 tons a day or more in working order in this country, and there are some six or eight further systems with a capacity of 10 tons a day or over. These include the type developed at H.M.'s Fuel Research Station, of which a 100-ton-a-day plant is being erected by the Gas, Light and Coke Co.

"The results obtained from these plants during the next few years should show how far, and under what conditions, each type is likely to be a commercial success.'

According to information supplied to the recent Carbonisation Conference, under the process in operation at Barugh, near Barnsley, 1,500 tons of coal are being carbonised weekly, yielding over 1,000 tons of coalite, 28,200 gallons of oil, 3,750 gallons of benzole, and 7,000,000 c.f. of rich gas.

TRANSFORMATION OF MATTER. At the Royal Institution, London, on March 10, Sir Ernest Rutherford delivered an address on "The Transformation of Matter." It was well-known he said, that minute traces of gold were to be found in many substances, and where gold was said

to have been produced from base metals, the gold was no doubt there all the time. In the last few years the Press had been full of claims by people that they could change mercury or lead into gold or some other metal. The first case was the conversion of mercury into gold by the passage of electric current through an ordinary mercury vapour. This claim had been made within recent years by German and Japanese scientists, and much about this miracle has appeared in the newspapers. Actually, the minute amounts of gold thus "transmuted" were present to begin with either in the mercury or the electrodes, for when other experimenters had carried out precisely the same experiment after having first taken the precaution of removing all foreign substances from the materials used, not a trace of gold was produced.

The theory of the permanency and indestructibility of the atom was, until the end of last century, the foundation of chemical and physical science. Then came the sensational discovery of radium and other radio-active substances, which had revolutionised all ideas of the atom and the structure of matter. The study of the transformations which occurred in these radio-active bodies was one of the most fascinating branches of science. Before one's eyes these substances could be seen transforming themelves into other substances by ejecting alpha, beta, and gamma particles from their atoms. Up to the present, methods of transmuting metals on any large scale were not proved. At the same time they could not say that it might not become possible on a small scale to produce those effects.

NORTH-EAST COAST EXHIBITION OF SCIENCE AND ART.

It is 40 years since the last Newcastle Exhibition closed in a triumphant success. It is now proposed to hold an exhibition from May to October, 1929. Already the preliminary announcement contains a list of influential patrons and supporters, which augurs well for the success of the great under taking, which cannot fail to have farreaching beneficial results on the various inlustries in the North and also the whole country. The Offices of the Exhibition are at Pearl Buildings, Northumberland

Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the Hon. Secretary being Mr. Herbert Shaw, D.L., J.P., and the Organiser and General Manager, Mr. C. P. Mamsworth.

brought to conclusion so far as the potassium, rubidium, cæsium, and ammonium salts of the series were concerned, the author has endeavoured to obtain the corresponding thallium salts of the series, two of which only had been included in the work published, the other twelve salts having proved too difficult to obtain in adequately good crystals. In 1925 two others were obtained and described, and the author has now succeeded in obtaining excellent crystals of the remaining ten. Four of them are double sulphates containing thallium as the Rmetal, and magnesium, ferrous iron, manganese and copper as the M-metals. These are described in the present communication. The other six are double selenates, and are described in the following memoir.

The Hexhydrated Double Selenates Containing Thallium. By A. E. H .TUTTON, F.R.S.

The six salts are those in which R- is thallium and the M-metal is magnesium, nickel, cobalt, ferrous iron, manganese, and copper.

The results of the whole investigation (both papers) agree in showing that while, as previously proved, potassium, rubidium, and cæsium salts of the great series invariably show crystal forms and properties which vary regularly with the atomic number of the alkali metal, and that the ammonium members, while showing no relation to atomic numbers or weights, resemble the corresponding rubidium salts containing the same M-metal so closely as to be practically iso-structural, thallium salts invariably occupy a position well within the limits (as regards angles and constants) of potassium and cæsium salt, and one which approaches most closely to that of the rubidium salt, yet not so closely as do the ammonium salts. Thallium salts, however, have one strikingly outstanding property, that of very high optical refraction, occasionally exceeding even that of monobromo

naphthalene and yet more so that of carbon bisulphide.

These papers complete the author's study and full detailed description of the great series of seventy-seven salts.

The Distribution of Intensity in the Band Spectrum of Helium: the Band λ 4650. By W. H. J. CHILDS. Communicated by O. W. Richardson, F.R.S.

Some measurements of the intensity distribution in the helium band A 4650 .(first of the main series) are given enabling the predictions of the summation rule to be tested. The predicted distribution is of the correct type, but agreement with observation is by no means complete. Notably the P and R' branches are much stronger, relative to the Q branch than theory indicates. It is found that an expression, of form ie- EKT where i is a linear function of j', is adequate to describe the observed distribution.

As with many other bands the temperature obtained by assuming that distribution of angular momentum is governed by the Boltzmann factor is much higher than the true temperature of the gas. In this case effective temperatures or approximately 750 A and 1000 A are found, depending on conditions of excitation. A higher temperature is obtained from the Q branch than from the P and R branches. Examination of Doppler width of band lanes shows, however, that there is a distribution of translational velocities corresponding to true temperature.

Studies in the Behaviour of Hydrogen and Mercury at the Electrode Surfaces of Spectrum Tubes. By M. C. JOHNSON. Communicated by S. W. J. Smith, F.R.S.

The proportion of a hydrogen positive ray spectrum which is due to the neutralisation of protons is decreased by a temporary admission of Mercury vapour. The decrease

persists after the Hg is pumped off and the tube repeatedly washed with H. The accompanying domination of the spectrum by Hg at an extremely small partial pressure is delayed and weakened by the substitution of Nickel for Aluminium as the cathode material, except when the Ni is kept in gaseous communication with Al.

The resistance at electrodes of different sensitivities to Hg contamination is not altered by that contamination if the tube is filled with H, but is sensitive to a change from II to air. Hg is only liber ated from a contaminated cathode during discharge. When Hg is admitted to a tube the rise in total gas pressure continues after the Hg admission has ceased.

A solid Hg cathode can be made to disintegrate under bombardment in a manner different from its thermal evaporation, but the excessive disintegration product of the contaminated Al is of Al and not due to thermal or electrical sputtering of Hg.

These results can be related to other known facts by a hypothesis that the increased cathode disintegration is not, as on current theories, a primary effect of the admission of a monatomic gas. Instead we suppose, it is the secondary effect of the removal of a surface layer of Oxygen, allowing disintegration afterwards by ordinary proton bombardment, and allowing escape of H from the Al structure. The spectrum changes are then consequences of mass and critical potentials of Hg. The resistance experiments indicate that alternative explanation by inhibition of photo-electric liberation at cathode by Hg is not required for the positive ray experiments.

SOCIETY OF PUBLIC ANALYSTS.

The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held at the Chemical Society's Rooms, Burlington House, on Wednesday, March 7, when the President, Mr. E. Richards Bolton, delivered his annual address.

The following were elected as Officers and Council for the year 1928

President- Edward Hinks.

Past Presidents, serving on the CouncilE. Richards Bolton, A Chaston Chapman, Bernard Dyer, P. A. Ellis Richards, Alfred Smetham, G. Rudd Thompson, E. W. Voelcker, J. Augustus Voelcker.

Vice-Presidents John Evans, Thomas Macara, John White.

Hon. Treasurer-E. B. Hughes. Hon. Secretary-F. W. F. Arnaud. Members of Council-A. P. Davson, J. Golding, J. T. Hewitt, E. V. Jones, R. Lessing, Andrew More, W. Partridge, E. K. Rideal, W. H. Roberts, C. A. Seyler, M. S. Salaman and Jas. Wood.

An Ordinary meeting of the Society then followed, the President, Mr. Edward Hinks, being in the chair.

Certificates were read for the first time in favour of Frank Rowland Hill, B.Sc., A.I.C., Edward Thomas Illing, B.Sc., F.I.C.; Farid Isander, Harry Bulmer Marston, B.Sc., A.I.C.; Reginald James Munro, B.Sc., A.I.C.; John Ralph Nicholls, B.Sc., F.I.C.; H. Gordon Reeves, D.Sc., Ph.D., F.I.C.; George Walsh, B.Sc., A.I.C.; Ronald

George Warren, B.Sc.; William Arthur Waygood, B.Sc., A.R.C.S., A.I.C.

Certificates were read for the second time in favour of John Edmund Aps, Edward Erie Billington,M.Sc.; Ralph C. Chirnside; Ralph David Owen, A.I.C., A.M.I.Chem.E.

The following were elected Members of the Society: Andrew R. Buchanan and Arthur George Francis, B.Sc., F.I.C.

The following papers were read

Composition of the Fatty Acids present as Glycerides in Elasmobranch Oils. By T. P. HILDITCH, D.Sc., F.I.C., AND A. HOUL

BROOKE.

The method of separating the fatty acids of shark-liver oils by fractional distillation of the methyl esters has been experimentally examined, and identification tests applied to the redistilled fractions have established the validity of the method. The results are probably accurate to within about 1 per cent., up to and including acids of the Co series. It is shown that whereas normal marine animal oils contain 30 to 40 per cent. of acids of the C2, and C22 groups, the fatty acids of shark-liver oils are of relatively low unsaturation. Apparently there is some connection between the deficiency of the above-mentioned highly unsaturated acids and the presence of large amounts of the highly unsaturated squalene.

Behaviour of Indicators in the Titration of Ammonia, Sodium, and Calcium Phosphates, the Methylamines, Pyridine Bases and Boric Acid. By R. T. THOMSON, F.I.C. A series of determinations has been made to ascertain the value of different indicator for the commercia lanalysis of these products. For ammonia and the methylamines methyl orange is the most satisfactory, and Congo Red for pyridine bases. Methyl orange is also to be preferred as an indicator for boric acid in quantities not exceeding 0.2 grm. The difficulties in titrating phosphates are discussed, and the results obtained with different indicators are compared.

Cacoa Tannin. By H. R. JENSEN, M.Sc., F.I.C.

As tannin is probably a principal cause of astringency in chocolate, the cinchonine method has been applied to the determination of tannin in cacoa. The cinchonine tannate precipitate was found to contain 4.4 per cent. of nitrogen, which is similar to the 4.3 per cent. found in the hop and tea tannin compounds. The water-soluble tannin content of eleven samples of fully roasted cacao nibs ranged from 5.2 to 6.3 per cent.

ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND.

At the meeting on March 7, at 16, Bedford Square, London, Mr. H. Dent Brocklehurst (chairman) reported that the list of samples analysed for members by the Consulting Chemist for the month of February had been submitted to the Committee. A letter had been received from the Ministry of Agriculture regarding the recently issued Regulations under the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1926. The Ministry asked that any observations thereon should reach them not later than March 23. The Committee, after consideration, had no observations to make on the draft Regulations. Further correspondence had been reported to the Committee by the Consulting Chemist on the subject of crushed oats. Various matters arising out of Dr. Voelcker's correspondence had been submitted to the Committee.

Mr. Brocklehurst, in moving the adoption of this Report, referred to the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1926. Provision

was made in that Act for the drawing up of regulations, and an Advisory Committee, consisting of members of the trade and the farming and scientific interests concerned, had been studying and framing rules for the purpose. The Draft Statutory Rules now issued by that Committee came before the Chemical Committee on the previous day. The Committee had no suggestions as to alterations in the rules, and he thought he could say the arrangements were very satisfactory. A great many points that the Society had urged for a considerable number of years had been gained, and Dr. Voelcker had worked very well in the interests of agriculturists.

The motion was carried.

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

(Continued from page 190.)

The Annual General Meeting was held on February 17, 1928, Dr. F. A. Bather, M.A., F.R.S, President, being in the chair.

You have been good enough to refer with appreciation to my palæontological work. Do you know, Sir, that it was your example when it was not your precept, that showed me how to present a paleontological treatise; and, what is more, taught me all that might be called the scholarship of Paleontology?