Jan., 1919
T H E JOURNAL OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
ever, determine, not the melting point, but the softening point or the flow point of the fat and the great difficulty has been in the past to devise a method which would determine even this point with reasonable accuracy and so that results could be easily duplicated. It has been the aim of the Committee t o devise a simple method for the determination of the melting point of fats and oils, but it should be understood that the term melting point in the scientific sense is not applicable to natural fats and oils.
8 : 00 P.M.-Reading
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BICHROMATE SOLUTION
The Committee calls attention t o the fact that occasionally potassiiim bichromate is found containing sodium bichromate, although this is of rare occurrence. If the operator suspects that he is dealing with an impure potassium bichromate, the purity can be ascertained by titration against re-sublimed iodine. However, this is unnecessary in the great majority of cases. GLACIAL ACETIC ACID
The glacial acetic acid used for preparation of the Wijs solution should be of 99.5 per cent strength or higher and should have a freezing point of 14.7to 15 O C. (m. p. 16.7”). In case of glacial acetic acids of somewhat lower strength, the Committee recommends freezing and centrifuging or draining as a means of purification.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS The I Ith Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers will be held in Chicago, Ill., January r j to 18, 1919 headquarters a t the Congress Hotel. The preliminary program follows : WEDNZSDAY, JANUARY15 9 : 30 A.M.-Registration. Address of Welcome. Business Session, including canvass of ballot for officers, 10 : 30 A.M.-Address of President Thompson, “Our Chemical Industries Made Permanent.” 1 1 : 00 A.M.-Symposium on Maintenance and Preservation of Our Chemical Industries: Dr. Grinnell Jones, of the United States Tariff Commission. Dr. Louis Matos, of the National Aniline and Chemical Company. Dr. L. C. Jones, of the Semet Solvay Co. Mr. Wm. H. Rollin, of the Rollin Chemical Company, “Future of the Barium Industry.” 2 : 00 P.M.-Dr. A. A. I,. Veillon, of the Monsanto Chemical Works. Dr. Edw. Gudeman, “Reconstruction Aspects of Some Chemical Industries in the United States.” General Discussion by representatives of other chemical industries.
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of Papers: Dr. F. W. Frerichs, “Reinforced Concrete Tanks for Storing Ammonia Liquors.” Dr. David Wesson, “Some Wild Engineering I Have Known.’’ Pa.-Smoker. THURSDAY, JANUARY16 ~ . x . - A l l day excursion t o the Argo Plant of the Corn Products Refining Company. P.M.-Joint Meeting with the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society. FRIDAY,JANUARY17 A.M.-Business Session. A.M.-Reading of Papers. P.M.-Excursion to the plant of the Lindsay Light Company and the Underwriters’ Laboratories. P m-Subscription Dinner. SATURDAY, JANUARY18 Choice of two excursions: (1) Standard Oil Company Plant at Whiting, Ind. (2) Plant of the Newport Hydrocarbon Company near Milwaukee, Wis.
THE JOHN SCOTT LEGACY MEDAL AND PREMIUM The City of Philadelphia, acting on the recommendation of The Franklin Institute, recently awarded the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium to Ernest J. Sweetland, of Upper Montclair, N. J., for the Sweetland Filter Press. This invention is to provide a self-dumping filter press, which will reduce t o a minimum the labor involved in discharging the solid residue left in the press after filtration and, also, the labor of cleaning the press by hand.
THE PERKIN MEDAL AWARD The Perkin Medal for 1918 has been awarded t o Dr. F. G. Cottrell for brilliant and useful research and development work in bringing about the practical and successful commercial operation of his method for smoke, fume, and dust abatement, The Medal will be presented a t a meeting of the New YorK Section of the Society of Chemical Industry t o be held in Rumford Hall, Chemists’ Club, New York City, on January 17. 1919.
THE NICHOLS MEDAL On account of the large number of research men who have been engaged during the year past on war problems t o which publicity could not be given, the Nichols Medal Committee has decided to make no award of the Medal this year.
ORRESPONDENCEI
DON’TS FOR WOULD-BE WRITERS OF SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES FOR THE PUBLIC PRESS As an aid t o the development of popular presentation of
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matter how dull you may be. “First catch your reader” is the rule of successful writing. Don’t leave out the human interest. Your reader is a human being even if you are merely a scientist.
matters chemical by the members of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL Don’t forget that your reader is interrupting you every SOCIETY, Dr. Edwin E. Slosson, a member of the Publicity ten lines t o ask, “Why?” “What for?” “Well, what of it?,” Committee of the Society, has upon request prepared the foland if you don’t answer his tacit questions he will soon stop lowing suggestions. Dr. Slosson’s successful experience in this reading. art amply qualifies him as a sound EDITOR.] Don’t think that you can make your topic more attractive Don’t overestimate the reader’s knowledge and don’t underby tricking it out with fairy lore or baby talk or irrelevant estimate the reader’s intelligence. He may not know as much as you about this particular thing-let’s hope not, but other- jokes or extravagant language. Bring out its real and intrinsic interest as forcibly as you can. Set off as much red fire as you wise he may be as bright as you are-let’s hope so. Don’t try to tell all you know in job words. Leave some over like but be sure it lights up the object instead of drawing the attention away from it. for another time. The clean-plate rule does not apply here. Don’t say, “This discovery is interesting” unless you can Don’t think that because a thing is old to you it\ is known prove that i t is. And if you can prove it, you don’t have to say it. to the public. Many of your reader9 are living in the nineteenth century; some of them are in the eighteenth. Don’t suppose that you must give bibliographical references Don’t imagine that the readers of a popular periodical are, like t o all the literature of the sbbject, but don’t fail t o give a clue pupils in a class, obliged to pretend t o pdy attentibn to you no by which the interested reader can get on its trail.
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Don’t fail to put your best foot forward. Otherwise you won’t have a chance to use the other foot. Note the construetion of the news story in any first-class paper. It is built up on the same logical system as the symphony or opera. The opening paragraph gives in succinct fashion the main point of interest, the gist of the story, just as the first movement or overture of a musical composition expresses the main theme
or motif Don’t expect the editor to explain why he rejects your manuscript. He is probably right in his verdict, but if you make him
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At zero hour-to use the military term for the time set for the beginning of an offensive-the barrage-that is to say the line on which the artillery fire is directed-was raised and the poilu-this is a French slang term for soldier meaning “hairy,, and corresponding to our “roughneck”-and the doughboythis is an American slang term for infantryman derived either from the round buttons worn in the civil war, or the dobe huts inhabited in the Mexican war or the pipeclayed belts of the Revo~utionarywar-sprang Over the top-that is to say surmounted the parapet of the entrenchments-sticking their bayonets-a weapon invented a t Bayonne, France, in 16.5into the boche-a COntemptUOUS term referring t o the Germans, probably an abbreviation of caboche or blockhead originally applied to Alsatians,
give a reason for i t he will have to invent one and it would probably be wrong. EDWIN E. SLOSSON~ Don’t say you can’t find anything to write about. This number of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering ChemistryCHEMICAL NOMENCLATURE and every other-contains a t least $15 worth of good popular The resolution2 passed by the Division of Organic Chemistry science stuff. Chesterton says: “There are no uninteresting a t the Cleveland meeting of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, subjects, there are only uninterested people.” in which the use is encouraged of “the pure English terms Don’t regurgitate undigested morsels. It is a disgusting habit. ‘benzene,’ ‘toluene,’ and ‘xylene,’ including all of their derivaDon’t refer to notes or books while writing. Read up on the tives, in place of the hybrid forms ‘benzol,’ ‘toluol,’ ‘xylol,’ subject as thoroughly as you can, and take as many notes as etc.,” suggests a few remarks. The recommendation is worthy you need. Then put away all your notes and books out of reach to be heeded by all English-speaking people, as it appeals to and next day, or a t least an hour later, lay a clean sheet of paper me, not so much because the discredited forms are used by the on a clean desk and write out what you know about it in your Germans, although an appearance of aping the German is of own way. Afterwards, preferably next day, read over your course distasteful to us all, but because the forms favored are manuscript critically, verify your facts, correct your data, regood English chemical nomenclature. As is well known, in vise your English, and add any essential points you may have careful usage the endings in the names of chemical compounds forgotten. But don’t expect the reader to be interested in what often have special meanings. They designate classes of comis so uninteresting to you that you cannot keep it in mind a pounds. The “-01” ending in organic nomenclature, e. g., is single hour. Don’t define a hard word by a harder one. Vladivostok reserved for hydroxyl derivatives of hydrocarbons (alcohols) and the “-ene” ending is used for certain classes of hydrocarbons. is a hard word, but when the war correspondent arrives a t The unsuitability of the name “benzol” for CoH8 is obvious. Vladivostok he says so and goes right on inland without stopping Although “benzene” is a good English word, as shown by usage, t o explain that “this is a city south of Khabarovks and east of and by its conformity to approved nomenclature rules, i t is Tsitsikhar.” So you, if you want to say “calorie” say it but interesting to note that it, as well as “benzol,” was first sugdon’t make it worse by “explaining” it as “the quantity of heat gested as the name for CeHa by a German. “Benzol” is Liebig’s necessary to effect a rise of temperature of one degree centigrade name; Hofmann suggested “benzene.” of a cube of water, each dimension of which is one tenth part Both in Great Britain, where, by the way, efforts have also of the length of a bar of platinum and iridium alloy lying in been made to discourage the use of “benzol” in favor of the observatory of St. Cloud if it has not been smashed up by a shell from the Big Bertha.” If you think you must define “benzene,” and in the United States the use of “benzol” has been more common among industrial men. The fact-is signifithe calorie say casually that 100 calories of energy can be derived cant that these men are more frequently speaking not of the from four lumps of sugar (Hoover size) or from a one inch cube pure compound C6He but of the commercial mixture of hydroof butter, or explain that a man needs to expend a hundred carbons of the benzene series obtained in the refinement of coal calories an hour all day to keep his body running and 160 tar. There is some question as to whether or not it is suitable calories if he is working hard. to give this mixture, which may contain less than 50 per cent of Don’t think you must leave out all technical terms. Use c ~ H ~ the , Same name as given to the pure compound; them, whenever necessary, without apology and, if possible, favor the use of “benzene” for the compound and “benzol” without formal definition. People are not so easily scared by for the commercial mixture. (The ‘‘-ol,~ ending rule only applies strange words as you may think. They rather like ’em. Kipling to definite compounds.) In the office of Chemical Abstracts is read with delight by old and young, Yet his Prose and verse we recognize that there are arguments for such a differentiation .are crammed with technical terms. Having exhausted the and for a while tried to apply the two accordingly, but military, nautical, and mechanical vocabularies he invented we have finally decided in favor of the use of “benzene91in a new and unknown for his story “with the both cases, with such modifications as crude, go per cent, 50 Night Mail.” In his “Just-So’’ stories for the kiddies he sticks per cent, in suitable cases. This has seemed better particuin long names like plums in a pudding. A Kipling dictionary larly in view of the fact that the rather common use of both has been published but even the editors could not run down all for the pure compound would lead to confusion. the Peculiar words Kipling has Picked UP. But the ordinary There are other chemical words and names more or less cornreader does not need the dictionary. He gets the meaning manly used incorrectly in the United States. M~~~ of the infrom the run of the story, for the story is So written that he Will correct are corruptions due to German influence, often get the meaning. Observe that the war correspondent writes bad translations; this makes them seem particularly undesirable without hesitation : now, but there are other better reasons for avoiding them. Good At Zero hour the barrage was raised and the Poilu and the nomenclature is important for its own sake. A correct name doughboy sprang over the top, sticking their bayonets into the of a compound frequently serves to tell the nature of the boche. compound and often its structure also. Correct usage avoids And the man in the street reads it without batting an eye alconfusion and aids in indexing. In scientific matters it is imthough the sentence contains half a dozen words not to be found portant to be exact in words and phrases used just as it is imi n his vocabulary four years ago, or in the dictionary yet. But 1 Literary Editor of T h e Independent and associate in the School of i f this sentence was being written by one of our conscientious Journalism, Columbia University. scientists he would word it in this fashion: 2 THIS JOURNAL, 1 0 (1918), 944.
