1596
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
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J n y , 1930
actions,. new procedures, and new derivatives are continually suggested, while improvements in the old methods are made each time the course is taught. The deadly monotony of constant repetition is entirely missing. Men Responsible for Development of Course Any discussion of qualitative organic analysis would be incomplete without mentioning the men who have been primarily responsible for its development. Professor S. P. Mulliken was the ljioueer in the field and his monumental volumes of "Identification of Pure Organic Compounds," the first volume of which appeared in 1905, marks the beginning of this line of work. H. T. Clarke's "Handbook of Organic Analysis" (first edition, 1911) offered an abbreviated identification of the more common organic compounds. The tables in this handbook, which has been revised and brought up to date (1926), are excellent. At the University of Illinois this course was instituted by Dr. C. G. Derick in 1908 and elaborated and developed by Dr. Oliver Kamm (191115). Dr. Kamm's great contribution to systematic iceutification was the classification of compounds into seven groups by means of their solubilities. Since then new derivatives and procedures have been contributed with the result that the course now represents the experience of many men. Staudiuger, at Zurich, also gives a course in qualitative organic analysis which is based on volatility and solubility.' His scheme was published in 1925. Regardless of the speafic procedure adopted, there is no doubt that S qualitative organic analysis occupies an important place in the training of the organic chemist and assists in preparing him for research.
Production of Helium fmm Monazite. The industrial sources of helium have in recent years attracted a considerable amount of attention in view of the use of this gas in place of hydrogen for filling the gas containers of airships. In the United States a considerable amount of helium extracted from natural gas, the rich varieties of which contain about 1 per cent of helium, is available and in use. An alternative source of helium which is of great interest in the possible applications of the gas in the British Empire is the mineral monazite, the raw material for the production of thoria for incaudescent gas mantles, which is found in large quantities in Travancore, India. I n the issue of Dec. 27th of the Journal of the Society of Chmical Industry, Mr. R. Taylor, who has been working in the Chemical Research Laboratory a t Teddington under the direction of Sir Richard TreIfaU and his successor, Prof. G. T. Morgan, describes some interesting experiments on the production of helium from monazite. The mineral mntains ahaut 1 cc. of helium per gram, and thus in the working up of every 100 tons of monazite ahaut 100,000 liters of helium are allowed to escape into the atmosphere. The gas escapes on heating, and the paper describes how i t is purified by treatment with hot metallic calcium, which ahsorbs nitrogen and other gases. It is advantageous to remove mast of the nitrogen by heating magnesium before treatment with calcium. Working drawings of the apparatus are given in the paper.-Nature
