ABSTRACTS

Authors of scientific papers are requested to see that abstracts, preferably prepared and signed by themselves, are forwarded promptly to the editors. Each of the scientific bureaus in Washington has a representative authorized to forward such material to this JOURNAL and abstracts of official publications should be transmitted through the representative of the bureau in which they originate. The abstracts should conform in length and general style to those appearing in this issue.

PHYSICS.-Resonance and ionization potentials for electrons in cadmium vapor. P. D. FOOTE and J. T. TATE. Bur. Stand. Sci. Paper No. 317. Pp. 17. 1918.

The object of this investigation has been the determination of the resonance and ionization potentials for electrons in cadmium vapor. Resonance collision of the electron with the atom was observed at 3.88 volts and inelastic impact resulting in ionization was observed at 8.92 volts. The single line spectrum of cadmium is λ = 3260.17. If we substitute the frequency corresponding to this wave length in the relation hv eV, where h = 6.56.10-27 erg. sec., e the electronic charge, and V the resonance potential, we obtain V = 3.79 volts, in good agreement with the above. On the basis of Bohr's theory the ionization potential should be 8.97, in most excellent agreement with the experimentally determined value. P. D. F.

GEOCHEMISTRY.-The ferrous iron content and magnetic suscept

bility of some artificial and natural oxides of iron. R. B. SOSMAN and J. C. HOSTETTER. Bull. Amer. Inst. Min. Eng. 907-931. June,

1917.

The percentage of ferrous iron and the relative magnetic susceptibility in powder form have been determined on a number of art fic al and natural oxides of iron. Artificial oxides made at 1100° and 1200° consist of a solid solution of Fe3O, in Fe2O3. Their relative magnetic susceptibility is approximately proportional to their percentage of FeO, from Fe2O3 over to Fe3O4. The deviations may be partly accounted for by the effect of various factors, of which the fineness of grain of the powdered oxide is the most important, especially in the case of the more ferromagnetic members of the series. The colors of the powdered oxides depend both on their chemical composition and on their physical constitution, especially the fineness of grain.

In addition to the oxides whose susceptibility depends upon their content of FeO, there exists also a highly ferromagnetic form of Fe2O3, which appears to be rare in natural occurrence.

The natural iron-oxide minerals are similar to the artificial in that many are solid solutions of Fe3O4 in Fe2O3. Others are mixtures of Fe3O4 and Fe2O3. If the ferrous iron is not in solid solution or in magnetite admixture, the magnetic susceptibility falls below the norma'. Some natural oxides can be magnetically fractionated; and the less magnetic portions are found to deviate more widely from normal than the more magnetic. The cause of this deviation is not yet entirely clear.

Martite is a pseudomorph after magnetite, but its constituent granules or fibers consist usually of a solid solution of Fe3O4 in Fe2O3. The ferrous iron content and the magnetic susceptibility of the specimens examined suggest that they have been produced at temperatures considerably higher that atmospheric.

R. B. S.

GEOCHEMISTRY.-Zonal growth in hematite, and its bearing on the origin of certain iron ores. R. B. SOSMAN and J. C. HOSTETTER. Bull. Amer. Inst. Min. Eng. 933-943. June, 1917.

The powdered oxide from certain crystals of hematite from Elba contains considerable FeO and can also be fractionated magnetically. It is therefore not homogeneous, as would be the case if the crystal were a uniform solid solution throughout. Analyses and magnetic measurements on a cross-section of an Elba crystal showed that the magnetic susceptibility and percentage of FeO vary, not irregularly, but continuously, being highest at the base and lowest at the free-growing tip of the crystal. The crystal is therefore zoned with respect to its FeO content.

Since Fe3O4 goes into solid solution in Fe2O3, forming a single solid phase of varying composition and properties, a zonal distribution of FeO is to be expected in an oxide of iron depositing from a vapor or solution. The occurrence of such zonal growth indicates continuously changing conditions of temperature, pressure, and concentration during the formation of the crystals. Several ore deposits of contact-metamorphic origin show a zonal distribution of ferrous iron, probably arising from the same causes as the zoning of the single crystals.

R. B. S.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY AND AFFILIATED

SOCIETIES

WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

The Board of Managers met on April 29, 1918. Upon the recommendation of the special committee on the JOURNAL, it was decided to discontinue the lists of references which have been published in the JOURNAL from time to time, and to appoint a group of assistant editors to supplement the present editorial board of three members. The ACADEMY'S membership in the American Metric Association was continued for the present year. Ten resident and five nonresident members were elected.

ROBERT B. SOSMAN, Corresponding Secretary.

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

The 583d regular meeting of the Society was held in the Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, Saturday, April 6, 1918; called to order at 8 p.m. by President ROSE; 37 persons present.

On recommendation of the Council, Miss CRYSTAL THOMPSON and Mr. NORMAN A. WOOD, both of the Museum of Zoology, Ann Arbor, Michigan, were elected to membership.

The following informal communications were presented;

W. L. MCATEE remarked on the contents of birds' stomachs and exhibited the stomach of a merganser containing an embedded fish hook, which undoubtedly had been in a swallowed fish.

Gen. T. E. WILCOX remarked that he had once found an Indian arrow head in the stomach of a grouse.

Dr. L. O. HOWARD called attention to efforts made to limit the spread of pink boll-worm by the establishment of cotton-free zone in Texas. WILLIAM PALMER exhibited some fossil teeth and bones lately obtained by him from the Calvert Cliffs, near Chespeake Beach, Maryland: tooth of Hexanchus primigenius; fragment of bone of Puffinus; tooth of Champsodelphis acutidens; tooth of a sirenian; tooth of Delphinodon, n.s.; tooth of Thinotherium annulatum. His remarks were discussed by Dr. L. O. HOWARD and Capt. M. W. LYON, JR.

The regular program consisted of two communications;

C. D. MARSH: The cause of milk sickness or trembles. The first publication in regard to milk sickness was in 1810, but it had been known as far back as the Revolutionary War. The disease was especially common in the early days in the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, but has rarely been recognized in publications upon diseases as a disease with a

specific entity. The most noticeable symptoms are pronounced nausea, with vomiting, extreme constipation, and trembling. The disease was said to affect particularly cattle and was transmitted through the milk to human beings. A good deal of mystery has been attached to the etiology of the disease and among the suggestions as to the cause have been fungi, insect-borne germs, emanations from the soil, and a number of supposed poisonous plants. The plant to which suspicion has been particularly directed has been Eupatorium urticaefolium. commonly known as white snake root. The work of Jordan and Harris in 1909 seems to prove that the disease is produced by a distinct bacillus, and the publication of Crawford in 1908 seemed to negative the possibility of Eupatorium being the cause of the disease. It seemed best, however, on account of the suspicion which still attached to this plant for the Department of Agriculture to make a series of feeding experiments. These experiments proved conclusively that Eupatorium urticaefolium is poisonous to both cattle and sheep. The knowledge thus acquired in connection with other published statements, seems to make it certain, not only that the Eupatorium is poisonous to both cattle and sheep, but that it is the cause of many, if not almost all of the so-called cases of milk sickness in cattle and sheep.

Dr. Marsh's paper was illustrated by lantern slides showing characteristic attitudes of poisoned animals.

J. W. GIDLEY: Segregation an important factor in evolution with its special bearing on the origin and distribution of mammals. (No abstract.) Mr. Gidley's paper was discussed by Prof. BRADLEY M. DAVIS, Dr. T. S. PALMER, Mr. WILLIAM PALMER, and Capt. M. W. LYON, JR. M. W. LYON, JR., Recording Secretary.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

The 525th meeting of the Society was held in the Lecture Hall of the Public Library on Tuesday, April 9, at 8 p.m. Dr. PAUL HAUPT, W. W. Spence Professor of Semitic Languages and Director of the Oriental Seminary at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, gave an address upon Mesopotamia and Palestine.

"The early civilization of Babylonia was Sumerian. The Sumerian language appears to be related to Georgian in Russian. Transcaucasia. Mesopotamia passed successively under the sway of the Sumerians, Accadians, Hittites, Cassites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Macedonians, Parthians, Romans, Sassanians, Arabs, Mongols, Tartars, and Turks. Since 1638 it has been a part of the Turkish Empire.

"In 1902 the Turkish Government granted to a German syndicate a charter for the construction of a railway from Constantinople through Asia Minor to Bagdad, and afterwards to Basra. This through line from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf, which threatened the British dominion of India, was one of the most important factors which led to the world war.

.

"In 1886 I recommended colonization of Mesopotamia, construction of the Euphrates Railway, and restoration of the ancient system of irrigation. In 1887 I prepared a memorandum concerning a national expedition to Mesopotamia under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1892 I suggested settlement of the Russian Jews in Mesopotamia. My plan was afterward advocated by Israel Zangwill.1 The restoration of the ancient system of irrigation, which would make Babylonia again the chief granary of the world, was taken up in 1909 by Sir William Willcocks.

"The relations between Mesopotamia and Palestine are very close. The ancestors of the Israelites came from Mesopotamia. The Israelites were settled in Palestine when the Edomite ancestors of the Jews were in Egypt. Judah was not a tribe but a religious association of worshippers of Jahveh, including not only Edomites, but also Horites, Canaanites, Ishmaelites, Moabites, Hittites, Amorites, Philistines, Egyptians, and Ethiopians, i.e., a mixture of Asiatic, African, and European elements.

"It will perhaps be possible to solve the complicated ethnological problems in Palestine with the help of the new sero-diagnostic methods based on deviation of complement whereby the lytic action of a hemolysing fluid is prevented. Hansemann made some experiments with Egyptian mummies. Friedenthal tested the blood and flesh of a mammoth which had been found in 1902, imbedded in the ice of Siberia. The reaction showed the near relation of the extinct mammoth to the existing Indian elephant.

"Palestine (both Western and Eastern) is nearly as large (9840 sq. m.) as Sicily (9860 sq. m.), but it has only about 750,000 inhabitants, (Mesopotamia about 1,500,000). Like Sicily, which was the bridge between Europe and Africa, Palestine, the connecting link between Mesopotamia and Egypt, never was the land of a single nation and probably never will be. Certainly the Jews can claim only Judea, not the northern districts, Samaria and Galilee, or the country east of the Jordan. The majority of the colonists whom the Assyrian kings sent to Galilee were Aryans, i.e., Iranians, so that the founders of Christianity may not have been Jews by race.

"With the passing away of anti-Semitism Jewish nationalism will disappear. The Jews in this country will be Americans, the Jews in France will be Frenchmen, but they will continue to regard Jerusalem as their spiritual mother."

The 39th annual meeting (526th regular meeting) of the Society was held in the West Study Room of the Public Library, April 23, at 8 p.m.; President BABCOCK in the chair. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Mr. E. T. WILLIAMS; Vice-president, Dr. TRUMAN MICHELSON; Secretary, Mr. FELIX NEUMANN; Treasurer, Mr. J. N. B. HEWITT; Councillors, Mr. J. P. HARRINGTON, Mr. FRANCIS

1 See The American Hebrew, May 21, 1909.