42
JOUkNAL
OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION -
J ~ ~ A R1931 Y ,
were used, but the secret of the preparation of any glaze material has been lost by the modern descendants of these people. Coloring Matter Employed in Other Arts Mineral pigments seem never to have been used on basketry splints, for nature furnished cream, black, green, and brown material. In a few graves near Flagstaff, Arizona, however, remnants of baskets painted with thick clays of rich blues, reds, and yellows were found by an Arizona State Museum expedition. As the people had no wool until sheep were introduced by the Spaniards, they spun and wove their native cotton, and this yarn was sometimes colored by rubbing red clay into it. Designs on belts and sandals of yucca fiber may have been of vegetable dyes, such as the Navajos used on their rugs befofe the modem vogue for aniline dyes, but final investigation of such coloring matter awaits the future. The chief use of color, however, was in the production of pottery, that art which offered least limitations and most variation technically, and which provided necessary as well as artistic household receptacles.
THE LIFE LAYER OF THE WORLD. R. R. MCIUBBIN. A CORRECTION On page 1998 of the September. 1930. J o m a OF C m w c ~EDUCATION . there is a photograph with the following inscription beneath it: Tm P ~ E OR R CANOEBIRCH(Betula @ p y a a n Ait.) VERYCOMMONLY OCC~S ON PODZOL SOILS This inscription should read: Tas WHITBOR GREYBmcn (Betula fiopulijol&z) VERYCOMMONLY Occmts ON PODZOL SOILS
Boiling Mercury to Replace Electric Motors in New Refrigerating Method. Boiling mercurv will take the place of electric motors and pumps in home refrigerators if a new method just announced in Boston comes into general use The new process is the inventionof Dr Daniel I:. Comrtock, president of Cornstock and West, and one of t h e Inventors of theTechnicolor pracess of motion picturesin color, and Lyman F.Whitney of the firm's technical staff. The machine is called a stator. hecause all moving machinery has been eliminated. Instead a small boiler contains mercury, and when i t is heated and the mercury boils, the vapor is discharged into a ventnri tube, sucking water vapor from the cooling unit andcompressingit. Under theredncedpressure the remaining water rapidly evaporates, with resultant cooling. The heavy mercury flows back into the boiler and as it does so it pumps the water from the condensed water vapor back t o its original height. Models made so far are ooerated bv zas..but it is stated that an electricallv .. . operated . unit is contemplated. Besides ordinary uses in home refrigeration, it is stated, the simo bring low olicitv - system. t . . of the machine will make it available for a home-cooling. temperatures inexpensively to homes in even the hottest weather.-Science S m k ~
