THE DISCOVER:Y OF RHENIUM cize the methods adopted to. &bact rhenium from crude manganese preparations. Our original method DEARSIR: gave a product found to contain only one to two per In the October number of the JOURNAL OF CHEMI- cent. of rhenium. Later we adopted a more satisfacCAL EDUCATION, pp. 605-8, there appeared an article tory method [Sci.Progress, 24,481 (1930)l. It is easy in by Loren C. Hurd on "The Discovery of Rhenium." the light of present knowledge to .realize that earlier He referred to the researches of F. H. Loring and my- methods were not the best. Nevertheless, we were self on the isolation and chemistry of ,rhenium (dvi- able to make use of our early preparations to discover manganese) and also to those of the Czech investiga- some facts concerning rhenium. There is no evidence tors, Professors Heyrovskjr and DolejSek, and the im- to suggest that rhenium would be present as perpression might be conveyed that a claim was made for rhenate (except in crude KMnO,). Not only have priority over the German investigators, I. and W. Heyromkq and DolejSek used preparations from Noddack. The first paper by the German workers manganese sources but Polland's [Compt. rend., 182, was published in June, 1925 [Natururissenschaften, 13, 737 (1926)l work on the absorption limit of the K-series 567 (1925)l. Our first communication appeared in of the element was carried out with similar material. September [Chem. N m s , 131, 273 (1925)l and that The Czechs recorded four X-ray lines of the Lseries of Heyrovskjr and DolejSek in November [Nature, (Nature ref., loc. cit.). 116, 782 (1925)l. However, Loring had been studying Although I. and W. Noddack ("Das Rhenium," the missing elements for many years. A paper ap- 1932, pp. 66, 70-1) mention certain reactions in which peared on the subject in 1912 [Chem. N m s , 106, 37 divalent rhenium amears. I amee with Dr. Hurd that (1912)l and a restatement was made in his book, "The there is little evidence in favor;f the existence of stable Chemical Elements" (1923). Reference to his later divalent rhenium compounds. studies was made by the Germans in their first paper, Yours sincerely, a translation of which was published in The Chmual J. G . F. DRUCE N m s [121, 84 (1925)l through our instrumentality. Dr. Hurd, who has himself made notable contributions to the study of the new element, goes on to criti-
To the Editor
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