desk. ( 5 ) Being portable, each student may thus be held responsible for the condition of the apparatus. (6) The apparatus may be raised or lowered (to the extent of the height of the support rod) to accommodate the conductivity vessel. (7) When the lamp and attachment cord (with the upper part of the split plug) are removed and the electrodes folded up and pushed back, the apparatus may without risk of damage be stored in a small space. Chemists Seek Way to Unmix Oil and Water. The old adage that oil and water can't be mixed makes the oil producer smile wryly when he hears it. For like many another proverb i t is very far from the truth, and in this instance i t is a most expensive joke on the oil man, according to Dr. Gustav Egloff of Chicago, who spoke before the Institute of Chemistry of the Amerian Chemical Society, held recently a t Evanston, Ill. Oil and water do not mix as a chemical compound, it is true, but they often come out of oil wells together in that very intimate physical mixture known as an emulsion, wherein very fine droplets of one are suspended in the other and won't come out without the most troublesome and expensive of treatment. Thus it has resulted that nature evenr burdens the oil industry with 200,000,000 barrels of intimately mixed oil . years . and water as emulsified crude oil. Such oil dws not separate its water even after years of storage. To refine emulsified crude oil into dry oil and water is both difficult and expensive. "There are a t present over 100,000,000 barrels of emulsified crude oil in storage tanks and in sump-holes in the ground, and the refiner is a t his wits' end as t o how t o separate the oil from the water," Dr. Egloff stated. "Thus over $100,000,000 is tied up in stored emulsified oil for whose utilization no really economical method has been evolved which is applicable t o all situations. "Not alone do we have nature producing highly stable emulsified oils, hut they are also produced in the refining process, particula* in the manufacturing of lubricating oils. As a matter of fact extremely thorough refining is necessary to producelubricating oils which will not emulsify under service conditions in motors and turbines."-Science Service Beri-Beri Results from Prohibition. In the United States people are getting wood alcohol poisoning and shotgun wounds from prohibition. I n the Pacific Island of Nauru they are getting beri-beri, Dr. G. W. Bray reported recently in London to the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine. This severe nutritional disease, resulting from a lack of vitamins in the diet, appeared in Nauru shortly after that country became a mandate of Australia and, curiously enough, is most prevalent during the dry season. Supply of alcohol to native peoples of mandated territory is not allowed. The natives of Nauru make their fermented beverage from the toddy palm which contains large amounts of yeast. Apparently the absence of this drink from their diet, with the accompanying absence of the yeast that supplied vitamins, resulted in the appearance of beri-beri. The people of the island never touch rice, which has usually been the main food of populations suffering from beri-beri. The disease occurs only among breast-fed infants, thereby upsetting another dietary theory. Feeding these infants concentrated toddy cured them of the disease. consumption of toddy has not entirely stopped since the mandate, although it is much reduced. During the wet season the toddy palm yields much more of its fermentable sap, wllich accounts for the higher number of cases during the dry season.Science Sem'ce
