I n spite of these shortcomings the analytical chemist will find that the book contains a wealth of experimental material which cannot help hut prove useful. VICTORK. LA MER Co~uaaer*U m v s a s m ~
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SUPPRESSION OR WEEDSBY FERTILIZERS AND CHEMICALS. H. C. Long, BSc. (Agric.), Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Published by the author, "The Birkins." Orchard Road, Hook, Surhiton, Surrey, England. 1934. 57 pp. 17 figs. 14 X 21.5 cm. 6d. In a foreword t o this handbook on herbicides Sir Daniel Hall points out that high labor costs are forcing British agriculture away from the traditional methods of hand culture and toward "any cheap methods that science can offer." Chemicals as a means of weed control are one of the more obvious possibilities. The present publication, as with most European writings on chemical weed killers, is concerned chiefly with the control of annual weeds growing in grain. The discussion is chiefly a compilation of results of European experiments with sulfate of ammonia, nitrate of soda, calcium cyanamide, sulfuric acid, copper sulfate, iron sulfate, and kainit. Good kills were obtained with most of these, but the economy of the chemical method over cultural methods of controlling weeds in cereals is not clearly demonstrated. Sodium and potassium chlorate are discussed only briefly, since these are not widely used in Britain, owing to their sterilizing effect and high cost. Unlike America, there appears t o he little need of them for killing bindweed and similai deep-rooted, destructive species. Arsenicals, likewise, are of slight interest in Britain except for clearing paths. A chapter on miscellaneous chemicals includes salt, lawn sands ( a mixture of sulfate of ammonia and sulfate of iron), nitric acid, carbolic acid, hydrochloric acid, nickel sulfate, copper nitrate, carbon hisulfide, ammonium thiocyanate, potassium chloride, washing soda, caustic soda, sodium bisulfate. and oils. Lime and fertilizers are discussrd a t some length, bu; their value as hcrhicider appears more in their stimulstinx etTect on mops than in a n y direct repressing ~~~
MARGARETB YON WMOELL. Das Leben einer Frau, 187G 1932. Prince Wlodimir Andronikmu. Albert Langen-Georg Miiller Verlag, Munich, 1936. 383 pp. 17 illustrations. RM. 8.50. In 1932 an agricultural chemist of world renown, Margarethe von Wrangell, died in her adopted country, Germany. Her husband, Prince Wladimir Andronikow, has recently published a splendid biography of her, based on diaries, letters, and reminiscences. The book is embellished with expressive portraits and other illustrations and with many poems and short essays showing the literary gifts of Margarethe von Wrangell. A bibliography of her scientific publications has been contributed by Dr. L. Meyer of Hohenheim. On Christmas Day in 1876 the bells of the forty times forty churches of old Moscow were chiming gaily, and Baron von Wrangell and his family were especially happy over their ynletime gift, little Margarethe, who lay asleep under the lighted tree. Her first allusion t o chemistry appears in a letter t o her grandfather when she was eight years old. "Our doctor," said she, "has prescribed phosphorus for the mice and arsenic for me." Her early childhood was spent on one of their estates a t Ufa, and i t was there that she learned t o love and understand plants, little dreaming that some day she was to become the head of a great institute of plant nutrition in Germany. When she learned in 1904 that women students were not welcome a t Greifswald or Marburg, she chose Tiibingen, which
for the first time in its history was admitting a few women. "I have been especially welcomed," she wrote, "by the chemist Wislicenus." Although some persons regard formulas and equations as the dry bones of chemistry, Margarethe von Wrangel1 felt otherwise. "I find something so classical about chemistry," said she, "the purity and beauty of the formulas without the inflexibility of the mathematical numbers, but with life always pulsing through them." I n 1909 her doctor's thesis entitled "Isomerism of the formvl ester of elutaconic acid and its derivatives" was oub- ~ bromine - ---~~~-r - ~ lished a t Tiibingen, and in the same year she became an assistant a t the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Royal Agricultural Society a t Dorpat, Esthonia, where her ability soon became recognized. Because of the routine nature of the work a t Dorpat, however, she went to London to study radioactivity under Sir William Ramsay. I n a letter to Professor Wislicenus she wrote, "Sir William is very pleasant and especially friendly and charming t o me. . After a few failures, I decided to work quietly for a while, all alone, and try out something new. I read a great deal and made my experiments on the basis of my beloved periodic system. After three weeks, during which I hid from Ramsay, I grasped my four beloved little smeary preparations, wrote down in English everything I had found out, and went t o Ramsay. ." To her surprise, he congratulated her heartily. Margarethe von Wr~~rangell later continued these thorium researches a t Strassburg under Professor Edgar Wedekind. "For almost a year and a half," said he, "I enjoyed the tenacious and tireless collaboration of this broadly educated, methodical woman chemist. . . . The research included the first analytical experiments on natural zircania from Brazil. . . I already foresaw a promising future for her in chemical research." I n 1911 Margarethe von Wrangell went t o Paris t o study with Mme. Curie. "I am working," said she, "with one hundred liters of uranium [solution],a quantity which would fill two wine casks. Mme. Curie, who was very much interested in my thorium research, entrusted this treasure t o me because I had had experience with the thorium." Because of the serious illness of Mme. Curie, however. Margarethe von Wrangell soon left Paris and returned t o Revel, where she was placed in charge of the experiment station of the Esthonian Agricultural Society. When sugar became very scsrce in 1916, she wrote, "The Esthonian estates own three hundred modern, well-equipped distilleries, which a t the beginning of the war were in full operation hut are now idle because of prohibition, It ought t o be possible without great difficultyt o alter the idle distilleries for the manufacture of sugar and potato starch." She personally conducted a sirup plant which had been transformed from a distillery according t o her awn plans, hut the Russian Revolution s w n made i t impossible for her t o continue. One morning as she was investigating the naturally occurring Esthonian phosphates, a committee ordered her t o surrender her authority over thelahoratory. She refused to sign the paper. A few days later she was arrested a t three in the morning a t her home, and for about three weeks she was imprisoned in an old shed with a hundred other women. T o keep up their spirits after dark, they gave lectures on various subjects, and Frsulein van Wrangell spoke on Germany's f w d supply during the war and on German discoveries and syntheses. Her subsequent researches in Germany, on fertilizers prepared from Esthonian minerals containing potassium and phosphorus, laid the foundation for a flourishing fertilizer industry in Esthonia. Because of her hitter experiences, she shunned human society. "I lived with the plants," said she. "I laid my ear t o the ground, and i t seemed t o me that the plants were happy t o be able t o tell something of the secrets of their growth." These wards from her brief autobiography have recently been carved on a beautiful memorial slab a t Hahenheim. 111 1922 she became a member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, which was directed by Fritz Haber. The rich Stassfurt deposits provided German vegetation with a plentiful supply of potassium, Haber's fixation process yielded plenty of available nitrogen, but Germany was obliged t o import its phosphates a t ~
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