VOL.3, No. 6
C n ~ n a r s mHEALTH'S ~, T~RCEEEARER
645
trol the body in a wonderful way. There would be no need to drug the patient. Nature would be quietly and gently helped by the means she herself uses. There has not been an attempt in this essay to cover the entire field of medicine, but in every branch chemistry is always the leader, the forerunner, the torchbearer. In an address entitled "First Get the Facts," Secretary Redfield said, "The mind of science is one of high ideals. I t is a modest mind, for it recognizes that there are many things it does not know. . . .It is a practical mind, for it aims to find the hidden things of nature and put them to use. . . .The scientific mind, if it be true to itself, knows no passion, nor prejudice nor predilection, unless it be the passion for the truth that is not yet known." This is the mind of Chemistry.
Distinct New Form of Chemical Compound Pound. A new form of a chemical compound with properties varying widely from any of the other known forms is one of the scientific curiosities described a t the meeting of the American Philosophical Society a t Philadelphia. Dr. John H. Muller of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that germanic oxide har. a t least two distinctly different torms, one of which is quite insoluble in water and inactive toward all the common acids and water solutions of alkalis. These properties are quite a t variance with those of the usual form known t o chemists. Experimental work on the insoluble compound, designated for convenience the alpha form, has demonstrated that the pure soluble form may be completely converted into the alpha by a series of fractionations. Dr. Muller has found that this alpha modification has a density almost twice as great as any of the soluble forms and that when fused a t a temperature about 1100 degrees Centigrade a mare or less unstable glass results which is completely soluble in water. X-ray spectrographic analysis of these various' forms of germanic oxide undertaken by Dr. R. W. G. Wyckoff a t t h e Geophysical Laboratory, Washington. D. C., has confirmed the assumption that the alpha phase is a distinctly new allotropic form of the compound. All the preparations of the soluhle oxides aside from the fused glassy oxide are alike among themselves hut differ from the alpha form in their diffraction pattern.-Science Sem.ce National Academy HOIIOIS Norwegian. The National Academy of Sciences, a t its annual dinner, awarded the Agassiz Medal, one of the highest honors in the gift of American science, to Prof. Vilhelm Bjerknes, of the University of Oslo, one of the foremost scientists in Norway. Prof. Bjerknes represents the second generation in his family that has worked on a single great scientific problem, for his father before him, Prof. C. A. Bjerknes, was a famous investigator of the physical properties of water and other liquids, and when he died he passed on his problem t o his son, who has continued in the same field and made notable contributions which have had important results in the development of modem oceanography and meteorology as well as in the more purely theoretical physics of the laboratory. The ncsociation of Prof. Rjrrkner with American xirnw is no recent thing. f l e has hccn a n Aszoente of the Carncgie Institute of Washinoun fur several yrarr, a n d the relation has just been renewed for another period of three years.-Scinrce Senice ~
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