3 144
,
DISCUSSION
.
: .CHICAGO MEETING, 1919
It would be interesting t o know wllether Mr. Stork made any expe~irnents
.
.
dong this line.
Tl~e'cleter~ninatio
of oxygen will uniloubteclly give interesting d a t a
2nd assist in. the bettei unclerstnnding of both steel And iron. This
cletermni~atioii,however, is difficult, and requires a high degree of tech-.
nical skill.
A i'edknt lx~lletinof the Bufeau of S t a n ~ l a r d s ,brings
~
o i ~ ttliis'fact
aud rithei. ijilts'i11 &estion inany of the-determinations p r e v i o ~ s l y ~ ~ i i ~ c l e
by
thid'iipethocl.
T o 'quote from page 32 of this pap.er: "The Leclehur
,..
...
~iieilioclfecluires estiaordinar.y precautions t o obtaill relittble results.
lie e;rors'\ve have clescril)kc~undoubtedly affect in greater or less degree
lieal.ly.all ksults .by this methocl t h a t have been described in the litkl'btilie; and if these nre approximately correct, i t is b6cnuse of -compe.~isiit~ing
errors.".
'
'
.'
'
.
I . .
Standa~dScale of .Temperature
Discussion of the paper of C. W. WAIDNER,E. F. MUELLER,
and PAULD. FOOTE.
prcsentcd at, the Chicago meeting, Scpt.e~nbcr,1919, nnd printed in B ~ ~ l l e t i ~ ~
No. 153, Septen~ber,1919, p. 30.51.
.
.
.
CHARLESE. GUILLAUME,"
.Shvres, France (writteil discussion^)^.Referring to p. 2053, esperinlellts lnade a t the end. of the year lSS4showetl
a re~!~arknbleagreement .between the inclications of various verre dur
tliermbn~eteriof a~hichall t11; corrections hnd been deter~nineclwith the
greatest possible precision. The nlasinium-.deviations not attributable
to the comparisons thenlselves were then ahout 0.002 to 0.003 degree.
RIilcli later, -greater differences began t o show. They mete causecl b y
the fact that theglkssn~akel.-hndmoclifieil the conlposition by adding to
it a small quantity of lead. Efforts are now being made in France to
obtain ti regular supply of glass lnncle nccorcliilg t o the old formula.
Tile' determinatio~,of the boiling point of sulfur ~nacleby C l ~ n p p u i s , ~
444.6"; acco~clsvery well \vith tlie value notecl 011 p. 2054.
The International tlConimittee of' Weights ancl Meawues and the
Geneid Co'nfere~lce.hnve already consicle~edthe .future J ~ a n d o n m e n t
of the ~11j~drogensc.de
in favor of.the thermodynamic scale. The .hydro.
gel1 scde ippears to be, in theirestimation, a transitory one, happily so
~ l o s e l ~ ' ~ ~ ~ rthe
o afirla1
c l ~scnle
i ~ ' t~h a~t no corFection should l?e necessary
for ali n1easurements:of' tempel.ntui.e m:tc:le during .the.last30,years.
I t *must not be forgotten that the decision..reac1;ecl :l)y tlie Inter,
,
,
.
.
J. 'R.~ a i l li'h d E a r l Pettijohn: 'A Crit,icnl Stutly o f the ~ c i e b u rMethod for
Determining Osygen i11 St,eel. B1.1rcnuof Stnncl%rclsTccli. Paper. 115 (1919).
* Bureau hlternationnl des Poicls e t Mesures.
t ~ e c e i v e dOct. 11, 1919. Translated fro111 t h e French.
l: Bureau International, Trnvaux et Mdm oires, 16.
. :
.-
.
,,
,
STANDARD SCALE O F TEMPERATURE
3 145
national Conl~nittkein1887, and endorsed by the ~o'llferenceof 18S9,
applied only to the ii~ternational~service
of weights ant1 measures; that is
es
the hydrogen scale, or the tberto say, tlie domain' of t e m p e r a t ~ ~ rwhere
i~loclyna~iic
scale presents divergences wlich are, up to date, withi*l the
liinit Of measurd)le quantities. But it is not at all contrary to this decision to adopt other representations in the region outside of the one exI~re~sly-indi~atecl.
At very low temperatures, the best representation
that one can a t the present time propose.is undoubteclly 'that ,furnished
by the helium thermometer; arid a t high temperatures, hydrogen has
such a tendency to diffuse t h a t i t is necessary to replace it by another
gas. But then the eri.ors in reference to t h e themodynamic scale are
consiclerahle enough to necessitat'e n correction. All our efforts ought to
tend now to determining the corrections in such n way as to estencl the
realization of the therino~netricscale far into the region where the nitrog e n thennometer, for esample, overlaps. the mdiation pyrometer. As
the authors say, the latter is the only thing that one can use for ligh temperatures; n~licheverlaw is applied. I t may be notedthat, the fundanlental points o f a nitrogen thermonleter uncler 1om.irlitialpressure having
been chosen, for esample, a t the boiling,,point,of water and a t the boiling
point of sulfur, the linear estral>olktion ton;ircl high tenlperatures:will
give a scale very close t o the tlier~~~oclynanuc
scale. I t would seem possible to make a clirect experimental determination of conectio~lsby the
comparison of two nitrogen thermometers having very clifferelit initial
pressures.
. On 11. 2062, the authors lnentioxl the old measure of Holborn and
~ a i e n t i n e rof t h e .melti~lgtemperature of plati~lum. However, this old.
value seems to have been abandoned by the Reichsnnstalt; see 11. 2057.
. On the other hand, Harker indicated a llluch lower tempei?ahre for the.
melting of p l ~ t i n u m hut
; the process that he employed in his determinanation leads one to think that he used a ~lletalcontaining an appreciable
amount of carbon in solution, either in the foml'of caibon or in the forin
of platinurn carbide.
LEASONH . ADARIS,*Wasl?ington, D. C. (written cliscussion~).-It
~voulclbe difficult to point to anything nlore vitally important to the
industries a ~ l dto scientific research than a terllperature scale that is
trustworthy and re~woclucible. This paper is a clear and illuininating
esposition of the present state of our knowledge of the scale of temperature and it is pleasing to note that, by nleans of the standard scde ~vllich
the nuthors present, tenlperatures nlay no\v be clefinecl with such satisfactory precision. Thus a t roonl temper:ttures the possible uncertainty
in the absolute ~llngnitudeof a given temperature need not be greater than
* Physical Chemist, Geophysical ~ a b o r a t o r ~ . j
t Received Sept. 25, 1919.
3.146
DISCUSSION : CHICAGO MEETING,
1919
a[fevi thousandths of a degree; a t 400' C., the niasimum error is not
more than a few h~undreclt~s
of a degree; and a t 1100°, a few tenths.
Above 1100°, t h e cleternlination of the temPerature scale, hinges
-largely ,,?on the melting point. of- palladium, which-is taken as 1550°,
althougl~the average as obtained by several inclepenclent investigators
is sorllewhnt higher. As pointed out b y the authors, in oiily one of the., . investigations, that of D a y and ~ o s ~ ~was
a n the
, purity of the palladium
determined. This circulllstance brings t o mind certain observations I
made some time a.go on the difference in inelting 'point of three samples
of pdladium wire, one of which was drawn from a'piece'of the metal used
by D a y and Sosman. The. melting points were deterlnined with a plstinuin-platinrhodiuni thermocouple using the wire method. One sanlple,
melted 2' and another 12" higher than the D a y and Sosn~anpalladium,
which according to the analysis was very pure; and the thernloelectric
properties of the three kinds gave a qualitative support to theconclusion
that as a rule the purest palladium has4the lowest lnelting point., This
being the case, i t is not a t all improbable t h a t some of the higher values
that have been obtained for the melting point of palladium are influenced
by lack of purity. of the material, and this supposition lends support to.
the lower value, 1550°, which the Bureau of Standards has verywisely
chosen.
The scale of temperature,'as given, ternlinites a t the lower end a t
-40'.
It is to be hoped that the Bureau of Standards will, as soon as . .
feasible, extend the atanclartl scale down t o liquid-air temperatures or
below.
I
. .
.
,
Petroliferous Provinces
Discussion of the paper of. E. G. WOODRUFF,
presented s t the Chicago meeting,
. .
September, 1919, and printed in Bulletin No. 156, June, 1919, p . 907.
,
IRVING
PERRINE,Hlitchins011, 1Cans.-I think in reading this paper
one'should bear in mind its relation t o Dr. David White's paper on "Sonle
Relations in Origin between Coal and Petroleum."' I n t h a t paper he
discusses the relationship between the percentages of fixed carbon in the
coals, the gravities of the oils, and conlinercia1 gas possibilities. His
paper has a inap showing certain areas which Dr. White believes t o he
hopeless as far as oii and gas possibilities are concerned.
THE CHAIRMAN(C. W. WASHBURNE,
New York, N. Y.).-I would
like t o emphasize one point brought out by Professor Scllucl~ert.~T h e
southern hemisphere has had a n exceedingly lllonotonous geological history, except the northern border of Africa, the eastern border of Aus1
2
JnI. Washington Acscl. Sciences (Mar. 19, 1915).
Min. &. Met. (Nov., 1919).