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Correspondence PRACTICAL LABORATORY TRAINING
In the March issue of THISJOURNAL is a n article on the recovery of iodine.' The enclosed paper2 on the same subject just naturally ran off my typewriter when I read the method to convert the iodine into its salts. Why all the textbooks still give the methods of 80 years ago is what no fellow can understand. Teachers seem in a rut, and the poor students are worse confounded. My standpoint is making over a stony Connecticut farm into a real home, and letting chemistry go hang. But I read the JOURNAL from cover to cover every month and feel depressed generally a t the indifferent results in training the students. There are always some rays of hope, however. One of the best things in the JOURNAL, in my humble opinion, appeared some months ago. The article illustrated a very practical set-up for the manufacture of coal gas3 A series of such articles, using plumber's fittings, etc., resembling the commercial plant as much as possible would not look so d a c u l t to the beginner, who usually, a t first, looks upon the laboratory apparatus ' Bonner and Masaki, "The Recovery of Iodine as Sodium Iodide from Waste 7, 616-7 (Mar.. 1930). Iodide Solutions," THISJOURNAL. a See this issue, pages 11314. Howard Williams, "A Working Model By-product Coke Plant. A Chemistry Project for a Student at the Secondary Level," Ibid., 6, 745-52 (Apr., 1929).
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MAY.1930
as something quite magical, the meaning of which is almost impossible to grasp. It is something solid and practical that he needs to go with his as yet untrained hands. Therefore, as I say, preparations in apparatus not associated with classroom chemistry do not automatically close the mind, as Wilson said, against the introduction of knowledge, but allow him to grasp the experiments as an every-day matter. Your "What Is Wrong with the Picture?' shows this difficulty plainly. Of course, it is only the enthusiast who may work these ideas out, but, thank goodness, there are such, and in this connection I will, if I may, give $10.00 for you to give to the student author of a good illustrated description, in the JOURNAL, of a good model. What about a Townsend chlorine cell, Solvay, LeBlanc, lead chamber sulfuric acid or other plant for a start? And so may the adventurous chemist be trained, who with a meager assay outfit can recover his supplies or prepare some of them from the materials found locally. In the western deserts, old tin cans found on the camping sites near water holes can be used to separate the salts found on the near-by flats by fractional crystallization. Even the percentages of half a dozen components can be worked out to tolerable accuracy. A wood fire burnt to live coals, when the sun is not blazing, clay, water, and a few old tomato cans and brains will do wonders. Even many an ignorant desert "rat," with a little mercury to amalgamate his scarce poor ore, will scoop i bole in a raw potato, poke in the amalgam, bake it over the dying embers while%e smokes his pipe and hears the coyotes begin their nightly howl. By skilful carving the old hand distils most of his mercury for re-use, and the lacy gold may purchase a "good time" or be transmuted into flour and bacon to keep up the quest for gold. if not for knowledge. REDDING RIDGE ERNEST MACKENZIE MARSHALL BETEL., CONNECTICUT
