highly skilled in the art may require, but it is necessary for the understanding of these matters." It is interesting to examine Agricola's attitude toward the alchemists. He lived in the later days of alchemy, but he war not carried away with the vain boastings of transmutation. He usually denounced such ideas and dismissed the subject by saying that "the matter is dubious." He suggests that if it were possible to create precious metals from base o n e s "they would have by today filled whole towns with gold and silver." However, he could not completely escape the influence of alchemistic writings, which he must have perused, for in several places we find him recommending the use of urine as a quenching medium; and elsewhere mentioning the presence of gnomes or spirits in the mines. But, in general, as the translators have written in the introduction, his statements appear "as crystal to mud in comparison with those of his predecessorsand of most of his successors for over two hundred years."
STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS Is your chemistry club canying on some worthwhile project? Have you, yourself, an interesting chemical hobby? Have you devised an original chemical experiment or piece of apparatus? Have you built a working model of a chemical plant or a piece of chemical machinery? Have you a chemical collection of any kind? Tell us and other students about it in an article of not more than one thousand words. If possible, illustrate your article with drawings or photographs, or both. In preparing your manuscript, observe the directions to authors set forth on page 188. Ten dollars will be awarded the high-school or undergraduate college student contributing the best item received on or before March 15, 1929. Five dollars will he paid for any other articles accepted for publication. Address your contribution to the Associate Editor, JOURNAL OR CHEMICAL EDUCATION, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
Mercury Compound Kills Grain Diseases. Mercury in an organic compound. ethyl mercury chloride, has been shown to be a good medicine for seeds threatened with fungus infection, the American Phytopathological Society was recently told by Dr. W. H. Tisdale and W. N. Cannon of New York. Treatment with a one and onehalf per cent solution of this compound has cleaned seed oats of both loose and covered smut. sorghum of covered smut, and barley of strips and loose smut.-Science Service
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