thousands of young lives were lost through its neglect. When we bow our heads before the Cenotaph we think of the highly trained men of science who were killed at Gallipoli or drowned in the mud of Flanders while Ministers turned for advice to alchemists and circlesquarers, or confused great chemists with dispensers of drugs, and we wonder whether even now anyone in power realizes what civilization has lost through the sacrifice of creators of knowledge. While we mourn their loss, let us work and pray for the scientific enlightenment of the leaders into whose hands the destinies of the nation are entrusted, so that we may be assured of strong and effective guidance whatever is before us.-Nature. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS The Geology of South Australia. By WALTER HOWCHIN, Lecturer in Geology and Paleontology in the University of Adelaide. Published by the Education Department, Adelaide, 1918. Pp. xvi + 543. Division I. of this book is a general review of geologic processes and principles, with illustrations drawn chiefly from the geology of Australia. Incidentally, the illustrations bring out many facts concerning Australian geology, some of which are not readily available to the general reader. For example, in the discussion of deformation, it is stated that there are two belts of "settlement" (subsidence), one meridional, giving rise to the great rift valley, the ends of which make the present great gulfs, the other along the continental shelf at the south, running northwest and southeast, its location being about where the shallow sea floor slopes down to the depths. Settlement still is in progress in both these zones, and the earthquakes of Australia, of which two have been recorded in recent times, one in 1897, and one in 1902, are connected with the sinking. Division II. of the volume deals with the historical geology of South Australia, but, fortunately, comprehensive notes are appended concerning the geology of other parts of the continent, so that this part of the book is a summary of Australian geology, with chief em phasis on South Australia. Brief correlation notes tie up the geology of the continent with that of England. The sections dealing with the Cambrian and the Permo-Carboniferous are perhaps of greatest interest because these systems have large and instructive representation in the continent. The Cretaceous also is represented in a large way. The volume has excellent illustrations, both photographic and diagrammatic. The illustrations of Cambrian fossiliferous limestone, p. 377, are examples of the former, and the section of Mt. Remarkable, p. 279, of the latter. The hope may be expressed that when a second edition of the book shall appear, a little more stress may be laid on the physical events in the history of the continent, as for example, the character, extent and dates of the principal deformations. If knowledge permits their preparation, paleographic maps would be most welcome. The volume is a very useful one, and adds much to our knowledge of the geology of the continent. ROLLIN D. SALLISBURY UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SPECIAL ARTICLES THE COMPRESSION OF A SOUND WAVE LORD RAYLEIGH and more recently Professor A. G. Webster and others have given considerable attention to this problem. The following experiment, which is, I think, capable of exact development, is a further contribution. 1. Apparatus. Many years ago1 I showed that displacement interferometry lent itself favorably to the study of a diabatic expansion and this is particularly the case when the achromatic fringes are used. It is therefore suggested that the endeavor to look with the interferometer through the nodes of an organ pipe would not be unsuccessful. Open pipes P, adapted for the purpose in question, are shown in Figs 2, 3. In Fig. 2, cylindrical adjutages pp', of somewhat smaller diameter than the pipe (open within, but closed by glass plates gg on the outside) are 1 Carnegie Pub. 149, Ch. XI., 1912. at about a tenth above this and came out very shrilly, probably because it coincided with the octave of the unchanged pipe. Moreover this first overtone is probably the fundamental of the small pipes p, p'. Thus this overtone here also presents two nodes of the same kind, both compressed and both rarified, and the optic effects (ray L) are correspondingly intense. The other form of pipe (shown in Fig. 3) has the plane of the embouchure at right angles to the axis of the pipe, which is closed at g by a knife-edged glass plate. The other end may be open, or closed with glass. The path of the interferometer beam is shown at L. Since the distribution of density is simple harmonic, the details are here quite open to computation. pipe is in position at g p Pp' g' and G is a glass compensator. In order that the fringes may be of any desirable size and at any inclination (horizontal preferable), two plate compensators C, C', revolvable on vertical and horizontal axes, may be installed. If however the mirrors M', N' turn conveniently on horizontal aves, and M, N on vertical axes, the former may be used to give the fringes a horizontal trend and the latter, thereafter, for enlarging them. When the pipe sounds sharply, the acromatic fringes necessarily vanish. Hence they 2 The fringes at rest look like beads on a black string. There are about three colored fringes on either side of the middle one which is white. must be observed at T by a vibration telescope, in which case magnificent wave forms appear, measurable in amplitude. 2. Observations.-In the experiments, when the pipe P, Fig. 2, sounded its fundamental as softly as possible, the even horizontal band of fringes became definitely sinuous. Probably at the limit of audition there would be no response, except with much larger fringes. A strong fundamental makes the double amplitude about a fringe or more in width. The waves of the overtone are correspondingly shorter and high. The adjutages measured 1=21 cm. between plates. Reducing this to 114 cm. the fundamental came out much stronger, but the loud overtone gave a more confused record. Without adjutages the fundamental (15 cm.) still evoked very marked waves, but the response of the shrill octave had naturally quite vanished. Moreover the form of the waves, obtained here without any mechanism but with the even harmonics deleted, is of additional interest. 3. Deductions. Apart from details, I showed in the early paper that for a length of tube containing homogeneous air, the density increment Ap for the wave-length A may be written Ap=(C/IR)nλ, where C= 107 X 1.27 is the optic constant P.(-1), and n is the total fringe displacement. Hence if 120 cm., λ=6 X 10-5 cm., p=.0013, = for the soft pipe note. Rayleigh considers dp/p 6 X 10- just audible, so that my value is of a reasonable order, holding about 2.4 X 105 times more energy per average cm.3 (p dp/p: 103 ergs/cm.3) than Rayleigh's limiting note. For the shorter adjutages the main energy would be correspondingly larger. An open cylindrical resonator close to an equipitched open organ pipe can just be seen to respond. Blown at its edges by a lamella of air, however, strong waves antedate the first audible sibillation of pitch. Into the variety of inter 3 Carnegie Publ. No. 249, III., Chap. V.; IV., Chap. VI., 1919. 4 C. P., 149, p. 145. esting stroboscopic effects I can not enter here. CARL BARUS BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, R. I. THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY (Continued) A mosaic disease of cabbage as revealed by its nitrogen constituents: S. L. JODIDI, S. C. MOULTON and K. S. MARKLEY. The cabbage disease investigated is characterized by denitrification taking place in the affected tissues, whereby the nitrates are in part reduced to ammonia which is lost as such, and in part to nitrites which reacting on the amino groups of the various organic compounds -acid amides, amino acids, etc.-bring about the elimination of elementary nitrogen. This is the reason why diseased cabbage tissues have a smaller proportion of total, nitrate, acid amide, diamino and monoamino nitrogen, nitrites occurring in diseased tissues only. Denitrification occurs in affected cabbage leaves in a very much higher degree than it does in the roots. There is a higher proportion of protein in the diseased cabbage tissues than in the normal. Loss of nitrogen in the affected cabbage tissues is in itself an explanation of the cabbage disease. Thus, e.g., one of its conspicuous characteristics, the dwarfing of the plants, is easily understood when we bear in mind that the nitrogenous compounds such as acid amides, amino acids and others, which are partly lost through denitrification, are the very materials out of which the plant is building up its tissues. In the healthy cabbage samples the nitrogen is made up, in round figures, of 30 per cent. protein nitrogen, 7 per cent. diamino nitrogen, 10 per cent. mono-amino nitrogen, and 13 per cent. peptide nitrogen, which means that at least 13 per cent. of the nitrogen compounds present in cabbage have direct nutritive value. The influence of the diet of the cow upon the fat soluble and water soluble vitamine of cow's milk: R. ADAMS DUTCHER, CORNELIA KENNEDY and C. H. ECKLES. Albino rats were fed purified diets containing casein, dextrin, agar, butter fat, wheat embryo extract and an adequate salt mixture. Varying quantities of winter milk and spring milk were fed with diets containing no added butter fat and with other diets containing no embryo extract. It was found that spring milk is superior growth-promoting properties with regard to both the fat soluble and the water soluble vitamine. When the milk is at its best 10 c.c. will furnish sufficient water soluble and fat soluble vitamine for normal growth in the albino rat. When winter butter fat was fed it required 20 per cent. of this fat in the ration to furnish sufficient fat soluble vitamine for growth. Several rats lost weight and died while being fed a diet containing 20 per cent. of winter butter fat. was The influence of the diet of the cow upon the antiscorbutic and nutritive properties of cow's milk: R. ADAMS DUTCHER, C. H. ECKLES, C. D. DAHLE, S. W. MEAD and O. G. SCHAEFER. Two cows were fed a vitamine-poor type of winter ration for a period of five months during which time the milk was fed in varying quantities to guineapigs which received a basal diet of oats. New sets of pigs were added as the experiment progressed. After five months the diet of the cows changed abruptly to a high vitamine diet and the cows were given access to green grass. During this period several sets of guinea-pigs were fed as in Period I. As we announced previously, it was found that spring milk is superior to winter milk in antiscorbutic and nutritive properties. It was also found that there is a decided tendency for the nutritive properties of the milk to remain relatively good for four to eight weeks after the cow has been placed on a vitamine-poor winter ration. On the other hand, the nutritive superiority of spring milk became evident almost immediately after the cows were placed upon green grass. The influence of the diet upon the growth and development of testes and adrenals in White Leghorn cockerels: R. ADAMS DUTCHER and S. D. WILKINS. Further observations on the antineuritic properties of chemical substances: R. ADAMS DUTCHER, G. E. HOLM and HARLOW BIERMAN. We have noted, in a previous publication, the fact that thyroxin (the thyroid hormone) possesses antineuritic properties. Due to the fact that this compound contains an indol nucleus, we have extended our studies to other indol derivatives. Thus far we have been able to demonstrate that a-keto-Bpropyl-indol possesses decided antineuritic properties. Similar observations were made in the case of N methyl-ß-ethyl-indolinon. Negative results were obtained with N methyl-3-methyl-indolinon and a-phenyl-3-methyl-indol. A study of certain physico-chemical and colloidal properties of the glutens from strong and weak flours: PAUL FRANCIS SHARP and Ross AIKEN GORTNER. Gluten from flours of widely differing quality were studied with respect to (1) rate and extent of imbibition in the presence of acids, (2) rate of imbibition in the presence of alkalis, (3) the effect of salts on imbibition in alkalis, (4) the gold number of the gluten, (5) the binding capacity of the gluten as measured by titration and by the potentiometer, (6) the specific conductance of gluten sols dispersed in dilute alkali, (7) the viscosity of the gluten and gluten sols, (8) the isoelectric points of the various glutens, and (9) the effect of drying in vacuo on the physico-chemical properties of the gluten The results indicate that there are marked differences in the physico-chemical colloidal properties of the different glutens in addition to those which have already been observed in rate of imbibition and imbibition capacity. Apparently the colloidal condition of the gluten is at least one of the major factors which must be considered in the problem of flour strength. Further observations on the relation between the imbibition of the gluten and the strength of wheat flour: C. H. BAILEY and S. D. WILKINS. A study of flours of varying degrees of strength indicate that low strength is not necessarily attributable solely to inferior quality of gluten as indicated by lower hydration capacity of the latter in the presence of dilute acids. Low percentages of gluten contribute to a general reduction of baking strength, other things being equal. Occasionally, however, a low gluten flour will possess a baking strength above the average of its type, in which an abnormally high quality of gluten is generally indicated by its high hydration capacity. It is further probable that the complex known as strength is influenced by the quantity and character of yeast nutrients and fermentable material in the dough. The strength of flours which are normal in other particulars seems to be depressed by deficiencies in yeast nutrients. Some observations upon the isolation of cystine from keratins: GEORGE E. HOLM and WALTER F. HOFFMAN. Cystine could not be prepared from human hair washed in hot dilute sodium carbonate solution, while from hair washed in cold dilute sodium carbonate solution cystine was easily obtained. Hair heated with 1 per cent., 2 per cent. and 4 per cent. Na2CO, for 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 hours removed from 6 per cent. to 55.67 per cent. of the S, while very little hydrolysis, measured by amino nitrogen occurred. Pure cystine treated in the same manner (2-8 hours) lost 1.7-14 per cent. of its sulphur, 20 per cent. of its amino nitrogen and changed considerably in its specific rotatory power. Biochemistry of plant diseases. III Effect of the brown rot fungus on plums: J. J. WILLAMAN and M. SANDSTROM. Five varieties of plums were subjected by rotting by Sclerotinia cinerea. The changes in composition of the tissue were characterized by (1) an increase in the P values, (2) a decrease in the titre, (3) a decrease in the malic acid, (4) formation of oxalic acid, (5) marked decrease in tannin. The ratio of protein to nonprotein nitrogen increases during rotting and during the ripening of the plums. The apparently specific effect of ammonia in the oxidation of butyric acid with hydrogen peroxide: EDGAR J. WITZEMANN. Ammonium butyrate in dilute aqueous solution in the presence or absence of excess ammonium hydroxide is readily oxidized by hydrogen peroxide. Sodium or potassium butyrate in the presence of absence of excess of the alkali hydroxide is scarcely oxidized at all by hydrogen peroxide. These facts are of especial interest because they offer a new and rational interpretation of the interrelation of increased urinary ammonia and increased fat and protein oxidation in acidosis. The fact that large amounts of acetone are obtained in this oxidation of ammonium butyrate, as was shown also by Dakin in 1908, supports the application of the results to the interpretation of acidosis metabolism. Antibody studies—Part 3. A preliminary report on the chemical nature of bacterial antibodies? F. M. HUNTOON, PETER MASUCCI and E. HANNUM. Presented by Peter Masucci. Bacterial suspensions were sensitized with specific serum. The protective antibodies were removed from the sensitized antigen by various solvents. The resultant solution was filtered through a candle and its protective antibody content determined by the U. S. Hygienic Laboratory method for testing the potency of anti-pneumococcus serum. Direct and indirect chemical methods as well as biological methods used show that protective antibodies are colloidal in nature, are not soluble in ether, and do not belong to the globulin group of serum proteins. They are not destroyed by the action of trypsin over long periods of time, and are not affected by certain dilute acids and alkalies or 30 per cent. sodium chloride solution. Heat above 60° C. progressively destroys or alters their nature. We may state that antibodies do not belong to that group of proteins usually considered under the head of serum proteins. The non-catalase decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by aromatic hydrocarbons and their derivatives: SERGIUS MORGULIS and VICTOR E. LEVINE. The experiments arose from the accidental observation that an enzyme preparation preserved with toluene had acquired a remarkably increased capacity for decomposing hydrogen peroxide. Euler and Blix have recently published the fact that yeast catalase is activated by toluene. The idea of an activation of the enzyme by toluol seems entirely improbable, for we have found that toluene alone even in minute quantities decomposes hydrogen peroxide. The action of toluene is also characteristic of other hydrocarbons of the benzene group. These compounds form a series, according to the number of methyl radicles attached to the ring, with a gradually decreasing power to decompose hydrogen peroxide, thus Benzene > Toluene > Xyluene > Mesitylene. The reaction is not general for aromatic hydrocarbons but is specific for those of the benzene series. Hydrocarbons with more than one benzene ring, like diphenyl, diphenylmethane, benzidine, naphthalene, anthracene and heterocyclic compounds do not react. The introduction into the ring of a COOH group, NHNH, group or one or more phenol groups renders the hydrocarbon incapable of decomposing hydrogen peroxide. The substitution of a nitro, amino or aldehyde group, or of a halogen atom for hydrogen does not prevent the breaking up of hydrogen peroxide, although the catalytic power of such substituted compound is much less than that of the corresponding hydrocarbon. The decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by aromatie hydrocarbons and their derivatives is not caused by changes in surface tension. |