IXDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
January, 1928
from place to place in the laboratory to obt:ain the best condition of light, heat, and ventilation. When not in use it furnishes shelving space for three dozen assorted beakers and twenty-four funnels ready for immediate use. The reserwir shelf makes the washing of precipitates inde-
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pendent of permanent shelving for gravity flow, and does away with the ordinary wash bottle. It permits easy access to all parts from a sitting posture, insuring comfort for the manipulation in case of long-continued filtration and washing.
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE Device for Maintaining Flame Height in Sulfur Determinations
the presence of finely divided nickel a t temperatures of 200” C. and less. By varying the temperature and catalyst they also produced other specific crude petroleums. Consequently they advanced the extremely plausible theory that water in contact with carbides in the earth’s deep or comparatively deep crustlayers generated the requisite acetylene and, also, acting on Editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: alkali metals or compounds, such as could most reasonably be I n the recently published Report of Committee D-2 of the inferred to exist in quantity a t different levels, was decomposed, A. S.T. RI. the members of Sub-committee VI1 on Sulfur Deterthe two reactions thus furnishing the requisite hydrogen and mination and Differentiation call attention t o the difficulty of acetylene. maintaining the flame at the prescribed height. Geologically speaking, the water could get down to the carbide The writer has found the device described by Squire [ J . SOC. and alkalies through fissures made by faulting and the oils Chem. Ind., 45, 4661’ (1926) ] t o be of great value u here accurate generated could ride back up the same way on water, being flame-height adjustment is required during trapped a t intervals under water pressure by further intermittent sulfur determinations, especially in a study slippings of the measures along the fault cracks and by the sealing of the effect of rate of burning, etc., on the of the vents by impervious top, bottom, and side formations, accuracy of such determinations. while the uncombined or otherwise combined gases could also The device is briefly as follows: By filling ascend with pressure incident to their creation or with water the wick tube with glass wool and having pressure. trimmed the wick flush with the top of the As tending to account, a t least in part, for the fate of the oxygen tube, any flame from 2 cm. in height to a released, the interesting fact may be mentioned that within the mere flicker can be obtained with natural last year or so a great oil well has been brought in in Colorado A = wick tube gas gasoline in the lamp. The novel feature a t a depth of about 4000 feet in which the gas accompanying the = rubber ring is that the flame can be kept a t a definite oil was not, as usually, a hydrocarbon, but was carbon dioxide C = 13-mm.length o f closely fitting height from the beginning of a burning, in enormous quantities and under enormous pressure. without interruption of the test, by raistubing S. A. HOBSON ing or lowering the small length of tubing
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AMOKY, MISS. October 24, 1927
which rests on the rubber ring. C. I. KELLY ANGLOAMERICAN OIL Co., LTD. PURFLBET,ESSEX, ENGLAND October 22, 1927
Formation of Petroleum Editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: Apropos of the instructive r h m 6 by D. H. Killeffer, “A Year’s Progress in Chemistry,” in the October, 1927, number of Industrial and Enginetring Chemistry, in which he states that Fischer and Tropsch have advanced a theory that petroleum is formed by reaction similar to that involved in their preparation, a t low pressures, of high-melting, high-molecular weight hydrocarbons comparable to those present in paraffin waxes melting as high as 120” C., and that their said theory is the only one so far advanced by which it can be supposed that petroleum is still being formed in nature; it may be interesting to suggest that Mendelejeff advanced the theory that water acting on carbides (perhaps iron carbide) in the deep layers of the earth’s crust was responsible for the formation of petroleum. Sabatier and Senderens went much farther and actually created appreciable amounts of oil corresponding exactly with Pennsylvania crude in gravity, color effects, odor, and all physical and chemical properties tested, a t atmospheric pressure (if I remember ariehti bv simolv bringing acetvlene and hvdroeen toeether in
Corrections I n our article entitled “Polarized Platinum Electrode in Neutralization Reactions,” Ind. Eng. Chem., 19, 749 (1927), in the second sentence under Apparatus and Procedure the polarizing current should be 0.43 ampere X 10-6 instead of 2.3 X 10-6 amperes. -4.H. WRIGHTAXD F. H. GIBSON In “Use of Quinhydrone Electrode for Following Changes of p H in Swiss Cheese,” Ind. Eng. Chem., 19, 1272 (1927), the gages for the gold and platinum wire given on page 1272 should be interchanged. PAULD. WATSON
New Books Index to Proceedings, Volumes 21-25 (1921-1925). 224 pp. American Society for Testing Materials, Philadelphia. Price, $2.50. Schiess- und Sprengstoffe. Band XVI. Technische Fortschrittsberichte. PH. NAOUM. 212 pp. Theodor Steinkopff, Dresden. Price, 14 marks. Signidcance of the Elasticity and Thermal Expansion of Fireclays with Reference to the Spalling of the Fired Product. R. F. GELLER.Technologic Paper 4. 14 pp. Price, 50 cents. Kilns and Fuels for Firing Refractories. W. E. RICE. Bulletin 15. 8 pp. Notes on the Design of Fire Clay Shapes. E. H. VAN SCHOICK. Bullelin 16. 4 pp. American Refractories Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa.
