2674
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
NOVEMBEB, 1930
Another, discussing his fellow-workers, wrote: These do not give themselves up to ease and idleness, but they devote themselves diligently to their labors, sweating whole nights over fiery furnaces. They do not fill their time with empty talk but find their delight in their laboratory.
The modern chemist does not believe transmutation to be an idle dream. Nature accomplishes the change of elements into each other by radioactive processes, but these changes cannot be controlled or initiated in the laboratory. It is recognized that any transmutation will cost many times the value of the product. Perhaps a catalyst, a modern substitute for the Philosopher's Stone, may he found, and if once the stores of atomic energy are unlocked, even that "life force" which distinguishes living from inanimate matter may be hoped for. The Great Elixir of Life.will then he a possibility.
APPARATUS FOR SUPPLYING AIR UNDER PRESSURE
For laboratories unequipped with air pressure supply or wherever an economical and efficient air supply is Hz0 Supply necessary to operate blast-lamps, blowtorch,es, bubblers or stirrers, the simple apparatus here described is worthy of consideratfon. An aspirator A (any medium- or largesized filter pump) projects through a rubher cork B into the receiver C, a widemouthed bottle of 4 to 6 liters capacity. ) A siphon D of 15-mm. glass tubing carries off the delivery from the aspirator; a 6mm. piece of glass tubing E inserted in the stopper delivers the air under pressure. Within reasonable limits the operation To, of the apparatus is entirely automatic, the siphon and pressure removing the incoming water, thus supplying a continuAIR-PRBSS~E GENERATOR ous and uniform air supply.
1I
Nitrogen Fixation Prize. The French Chemical Sodety has received from M. le Bel the sum of 10,000 fr. for the foundation of a prize for the study of the transformation of atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia by algae or micro-organisms living in water.Chm.&I d .
