Waken from your dreams of anguish; Recognize the signs of gain. Let not your own cloudy vision Hide from you the studcnt's brein. ADAIRWELLINGTON
A Convenient Suction Pump In using a suction pump, where it is desired to preserve the filtrate, I have been impressed with the desirability of some improvements on the usual flask apparatus and so have devised the filter depicted in the accompanying sketch. It has the following advantages: 1. A number of different solutions can be filtered without the necessity of cleaning the pump by simply substituting dserent beakers. 2. A small quantity of liquid can be filtered with no loss whatever by placing a beaker and test tube under the funnel. 3. There is practically no soiling of the pump. m e n necessary, cleaning is very easily accomplished. The base of the jar is screwed on in much the same manner as the cover of a fruit jar, a sealed joint being obtained by means of a rubber gasket. F. EARLEMOCK ARRON,On10 EDUCATING THE PUBLIC IN WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (Editor's Note).-This Journal is, 60th on its w n responsibility and as an oficial organ of the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society, committed to the furtherance of the metric cemfiaign. Consistent with our belief i n the desirability of n full and open discussion of all controversial matters, hweuer, we present the following comment from Mr. Dale. In the July issue of the JOURNAL o s CABMICAL EDUCATION,* Harvey A. Neville states that "the world is mostly metric." Before the World War, which has placed the English system still farther in the lead, a grouping of all countries according to their pr~dorninantsystems of measurement gave these results
* "Educating the Public in the Use of the Metric System," Tms JOURNAL, 2,593-9 (1925).
VOL.2, No. 11
CORRSS~~SNCB English
Metric
Population 674,857,000 358,331,000 Area (sa. 21.215.740 7.531.099 . miles) Wealth ' $490,000~000~000 $310,000~000~000 Income $70,000,000,000 $24,000,000,000
.
1065 Local 514,580.000 9.930.507 . . (no data) (no data)
The "metric advance" is re~resentedin the Julv . . article by a chart in which the same value is given to each country in a so-called metric group that includes the Belgian Congo, Haiti, Honduras, Siam, Montenegro, Salvador, Monaco, and Luxemburg, as is given to the whole British Commonwealth or to the United States. The misleading character of such an exhibit is illustrated by the Western Hemisphere, composed of the English group. Canada, and the United States, and twenty other countries that Mr. Neville classes as metric, but which are involved in a chaotic mixture of Spanish, metric, and English measures. The two English countries represent 48% of the population, 57% of the area, 77% of the government revenue. 59% of the imports, 64% of the exports, 93% of the developed water power, 81% of the railway mileage, 97% of the telephones, 38% of the wool clip, 95% of the cotton crop, 697' of the copper production and 99% of the coal production of the entire hemisphere, with an annual output of $66,700,000,000 of manufactured products, the manufacturing industries of the other American countries being so small and lacking in organization that no figures are obtainable. Mr. Neville on the first page ol his article asserts that "we have weights and measures oficileially defined by the Bureau of Standards in metric terms," but the fact is, as Mr. Neville admits on the next to the last Dare. - - . that the Dower to fix the standard of weights and measures belongs to Congress. Under the common law the fundamental standards of the United States are English, Congress having expressly confirmed this status by the law of 1866 which defined the metric units in terms of the English system. Hence any definition of the United States yard and pound that differsfrom the English standards in any conceivable degree is of no effect, and any attempt by an official of the United States to make it effectiveis a neglect of duty and in violation of both the constitution and statute law. The only material divergence in British and American practice is in the use of a gallon of 10 pounds of water in Britain and one of S1/r pounds in the United States, that is, 10 gallons to 100 pounds in Britain and 12 gallons to 100 pounds in the United States. On this comparatively trifling divergence Mr. Neville bases the claim that Britain and the United States "do not have a system in common." Mr. Neville's claims as to the confusion caused by the avoirdupois and troy pounds and by the dry and liquid quarts have their chief foundation in metric imagination, as everyone accustomed to the use of our weights and measures knows. Regardless, however, of the extent of this diversity, the remedy consists in subtraction. It would be aggravated by addition. We have two kinds of quarts. What we need is one less, not one more, the liter. We have two kinds of tons. What we need is one less, not one more, the metric tonneau. Mr. Neville's claim that there are 130 kinds of bushels is misleading. There is onlv one capacitv . . bushel in the United States. that of 2150.4 cubic inches. I n the natural change from capacity to weight many farm products are measured by units of a certain number of pounds, these "weight-bushels" being approximationsof the weights of the respective products per bushel. These variations will continue until nature produces d l farm products of the same weights per cubic foot, regardless of whether the weight is stated in pounds or kilograms. The situation would be made worse, not better, by calling a 60-pound "bushel" of potatws, 27.3 kilograms, or a 30-pound "bqshel" of onion sets, 13.6 kilograms. The remedy consists in hastening the natural
development by measuring these farm products by weight, say 100-lb. centals, as California and other progressive States have already done. Mr. Neville 6nds in arithmetic, tables of English weights and measures that "few care to remember for long," that is, tables of obsolete or obsolescent units. The remedy for this consists in subtraction, retaining only the weights and measures in general use. The National Education Association recently recommended that this remedy be applied by taking the teaching of the metric system out of the schools. Mr. Neville places great reliance on the power of the schools to make this country metric. That is what the metricites counted on sixty years ago when the metric system was made permissive, and the result has been failure. AU that Mr. Neville claims under the head of "Ease of Metric Calculation" is eauallv . . true of the Endish . system. with which decimals or other fractions are used to suit the work in hand. Mr. Neville's claim of "the entire absence of any relation (between cubic content and weight of water) among our present units" ind
